Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 43

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This is an archive of the help desk. Please do not edit this page. To ask a new question, go to this page.

[edit] Archive of past questions

1 Archive of past questions
2 February 25
3 February 26
4 February 27
5 March 1
6 March 2
7 March 3
8 March 4
9 March 5
10 March 6
11 March 7

[edit] February 25

[edit] Procedure for translation/copying article from another Wikipedia?

Is there an established procedure for copying and translating an article from a sibling non-English Wikipedia? I would like to copy and translate (and edit) the article Epigone from the German wikipedia and create it here. This all started when I looked up Epigone here and found no article, but a history showing that an article, apparently a trivial dicdef (of one usage of the term), was transwiki'ed to Wiktionary and deleted.

I started to write an all-new article based on the usage of Epigone in Greek mythology and historically (as opposed to the current usage), and while looking for source material, I found a Google link to the German Wikipedia, and there was a very good article. Rather than start over, I would like to translate the German and create the article here. Is there some particular protocol for this, or do I boldy "just do it"? Should some mention or credit to the DE wikipedia be made in the edit history or in a comment, and if so, in what form? Thanks, MCB 02:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It's still part of Wikipedia and therefore under the GFDL. Feel free to translate it. Putting a link to the original article as a reference and/or on the talk page would be good, though. H e rmione1980 02:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's the answer I was hoping for, but wanted confirmation. As it turns out, I will probably write an original article based on the translation, since (now that I've had a chance to read it) I see the article focuses primarily on German literature and history. MCB 06:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How do you make a sub-page for your userpage?

You know, like "Funnybunny/subpagetitle" Funnybunny 02:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Either type 'User:Funnybunny/subpagetitle' into the search box and press 'Go', or type http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Funnybunny/subpagetitle in the address bar of your browser. Or you can just click that redlink I created. --Malthusian (talk) 02:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Funnybunny 19:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Permission to edit?

Do I need to get permission to edit articles? I tried improving the wording of some parts of Newmarket High School and asking some questions on the discussion page, but both were removed without a trace. I hope my other edits to articles won't get me in trouble. -Serie 02:45, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You do not need permission to edit articles. From what I saw on the article and talk page, User:Kelisi and User:JaysCyYoung did not practice Wikipedia:Assume good faith, and reverted and removed comments they found to be "pointless." I actually found them to be of merit. I'll leave a message on the talk page to the same conceit. Mike H. That's hot 02:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this attitude could be the problem. — orion eight (talk) 03:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't explain better. The diff I provided was User:JaysCyYoung, who later signed[1] the comment and changed "we" to "Tykell and I"[2]. This is the same user who deleted User:Serie's talk page discussion as "unncessary nitpicking"[sic][3], ~~and reverted User:Serie's valid edits as "pointless dickering"[4].~~ This is a clear case of someone believing they own an article, and it has caused a well-meaning contributor feel the need to ask permission to edit articles. It's actually saddening. — orion eight (talk) 04:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a policy that forbids removing other users' talk page comments like that? — ApolloCreed ^{(comment) (talk)} 04:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it was Kelisi who removed the stuff on the article as pointless dickering. JaysCyYoung did his share of removing things from the talk page with the same "pointless" justification, though. Mike H. That's hot 04:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You are right, I stand corrected. At some point tonight I'm going to have to choose either caffiene or sleep. — orion eight (talk) 04:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] going to malaysia from singapore

What is the best way to go malaysia from singapore? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.124.151.44 (talk • contribs) .

This type of question belongs on the reference desk. The help desk (this page) is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please follow the link to the reference desk, select the relevant topic, and post your question there. Thanks. — ApolloCreed ^{(comment) (talk)} 05:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trouble editing a new article

Hello:

I am new to wikipedia (at least in terms of writing articles). I recently wrote one on "media violence research" and found that the formatting looks pretty bad. I am not sure what I did wrong (I also provided another article on "Nine Men's Misery" that came out fine). I seem to be having difficulty also with italics and bold...could you lend some assistance.

Best, Chris —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Avalongod (talk • contribs) .

You should refer to the article on Wiki markup (here's the section on bold and italics). Part of why your article looks strange is that you are starting new lines with spaces. I have modified the second paragraph of Media violence research to show you what I'm talking about (someone has since fixed them all!). When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it by adding four tildes (~) to add your user name and the time. — ApolloCreed ^{(comment) (talk)} 06:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the spaces. Side scrolling to read text is just one of my pet peeves, so I took care of that for you. If I were you I'd just start reading over similar articles and see what formatting should be added to your articles by using them as an example. You can look at the manual of style for info on how things should look and be formatted. Hope this helps... Dismas|^(talk) 06:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanx

Thanx Appolocreed & Dismas. I'll get the hang of this stuff soon (this is my first several posts). I appreciate the help.

Avalongod 06:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You're most welcome! I went ahead and added an intro to the Nine Men's Misery article with a bit of wikification so that you can see what the brackets and quote marks do for the look and feel of the article. It's not a bad first article! Dismas|^(talk) 06:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stub category for drugs?

This article here is pretty much a general article about drugs. I've looked hard (yes I've looked through both Stubs Categories pages) and I cannot find a stub category related to drugs. Can anyone help? Black-Velvet 13:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Hallucinogen_stubs, maybe? ({{hallucinogen-stub}})--Cherry blossom tree 12:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! That'll work. Black-Velvet 13:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] preparation for musical performance singing

How do i access information regarding preparation for musical performances (singing). Quotes would be useful.

You'll be better off asking this at the Reference Desk - this page is for questions relating to Wikipedia.--Cherry blossom tree 14:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] name Hunjin

This type of question belongs on the reference desk. The help desk (this page) is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please follow the link to the reference desk, select the relevant topic, and post your question there. Thanks. If your question is indeed about editing Wikipedia, please elaborate. -- Nataly a 15:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring Deleted Pages

If you know the correct procedure to have deleted pages restored I'd be obliged if you would please share that information with me.

^Talk - The Invisible Anon

Wikipedia:Deletion Review handles that process - there will need to be a discussion there.--Cherry blossom tree 17:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correcting the Block Log

Greatly appreciate knowing how to apply to have a User Talk page block log updated - where the log still shows a block which was incorrectly applied.

^Talk - The Invisible Anon 18:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure precisely what you're asking, but here's a guess....

There aren't any page protections on User talk:86.10.231.219 (See log).

The page User:86.10.231.219 was protected because it was being used to attack other editors. If you would like to have user page of your own, you are welcome to register a username and create one—as long as you don't use it as a forum for further disputes.

The log of your block can't be removed from the logs. This is both because our admins don't have the technical ability, but also because a permanent record serves to ensure some sort of accountability for both the blocking admin and the blocked party. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An eminent art historian

In 1953; while pursuing a post graduate degree in the history of art; I took a two semester course given by the eminent art historian and archaelogist, the late professor Karl Lehman Hartleben. the course was titled, "Pagan infuences in early Christian Art"; and I learned much more than the title would suggest. I anyone knows enough about this professor, I would appreciate a full Wikipedia article about him. Menahem

Menahem, you can create it yourself! See here as a starting place. · rodii · 19:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Email policy

Hello. I was wondering if there was a page that explained the usage of email on Wikipedia. I can't find the page; can someone give me a link to follow?--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 19:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

There is some info given on the Wikimedia privacy page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Information_email_addresses. - Akamad 19:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Or were you referring to the Mailing Lists? --Cherry blossom tree 21:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] adding images to an article

how do you add an image to an article i don`t just want to know this because it`s the help desk question.

See Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. For more details about formatting and displaying images, see Wikipedia:Extended image syntax; for information about what images are appropriate for Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Image use policy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] February 26

[edit] a Mormom funeral rite

I am looking for material on Mormon funeral rites for my dual project at college (a report plus an oral presentation). Any help that you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks. Stephanie

This page is for questions relating to Wikipedia and its policies. The page you're looking for is the Wikipedia:Reference desk. Dismas|^(talk) 02:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ocean Going Vessels Principals Address in full style

[edit] Editing by Translating Wikipedia

Is it OK to translate the English Wikipedia (since it's by far the largest) to other language, then edit the other language's page using our translation? Thx!

Of course! There is a page about this, but I can't remember it off the top of my head... --Thelb⁴ 09:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia:Translation into English describes the opposite process, and Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination/Wikipedia:Embassy detail the coordination process. GeeJo _{(t) (c)} • 11:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

No coordination needed, articles are translated between different language Wikipedias as a matter of course. Go ahead! But remember that just because the English Wikipedia is the largest doesn't mean that its coverage is uniformly better; for example, the French Wikipedia will probably have more detailed info on something to do with France. --Kwekubo 02:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

An atribution should be given, at the very least in the edit history. Despite contrary belief, Wikipedia does not own this content!! If I write an article in English and licence it under the GFDL, I want some credit if it's translated and used elsewhere. It's a legal and moral right. --kingboyk 20:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles#Legal_ownership_of_text --kingboyk 02:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two stubs

Should an article be placed in two stub categories? For example, Grand Mosque (Kuwait) has a {{Kuwait-stub}} and a {{MEast-struct-stub}}. I was wondering if this was policy. --Thelb⁴ 09:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it's a general convention at WP:WSS that if two stub tags could equally be applied to an article, both are appended. In the example you gave, the article could be improved equally easily by people with local knowledge of Kuwait or general knowledge of middle-eastern structures. Very occasionally, an article might get three, but certainly no more. GeeJo _{(t) (c)} • 11:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist

How do I remove all pages from my watchlist? I have over 1,000 and it would takes ages to manually do it. Although you can use javascript to do it I cannot seem to get it working for me. Any other ways to do this quick? --Thorpe | talk 11:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Make sure javascript is enabled. In Firefox, you can check this in the Contents seccion of the preferences window.--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 22:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What should I do?

I just came across the page Deoxyribase, there are things that seem wrong with it. I am no bio chemist, so it is a gut feeling. Such as gamma radiation being produced, being discovered in a high school practical and being active at a high pH. It may be partly a joke mixed with fact. Some one who has knowledge in the area should have a look.

In other words I feel it may need a expert, so how I tag it or where do I post to get the attention of one? --Royal Blue 13:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone's tagged it for speedy deletion as a hoax. --Malthusian (talk) 13:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] search function

The search function works OK for "VFI"

The search function should also bring you to the same place for the search term "Volunteers for Israel" but this does not work.

So how do you set up an additonal search function?

Thanks, Steve (email removed to protect from spam spiders) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Steveplotkin (talk • contribs) 13:36, 26 February 2006.

I'm not sure what the problem is. When I search for VFI or Volunteers for Israel the top three results are all redirects to Volunteers for Israel [5] [6]. --Malthusian (talk) 13:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Could you Add.....

To Whom It May Concern:

Could you add Shakira as Colombian Mother and Lebanese Father. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.143.222.17 (talk • contribs) .

You might find what you are looking for in the article about Shakira. If you cannot find the answer there, click here to post your question at that article's talk page. If that doesn't solve your problem, you can try asking your question at Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They'll be glad to answer questions about anything in the universe (except about how to use Wikipedia, which is what this help desk is for). I hope this helps. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

They didn't ask a question. They want us to add something, not knowing they can do it themselves. Try Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers. And make sure you cite your sources. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Shakira as a father of any nationality sounds a bit strange to me. JIP | Talk 15:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to link Global Coordinate to Google Earth.

Where I have included a Global Coordinate in an article; with what editing markers do I notate it it to enable a reader to click the coordinate, achieving a Google-Earth look-up (or some other maping program); assuming that reader has Google-Earth installed on his computer ??

George Metcalf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.51.25.115 (talk • contribs) .

Use the following markup: {{coor dms|37|16|05|N|115|47|58|W|}} (like this 37°16′05″N, 115°47′58″W), or one of the similar templates described at Template_talk:Coor. That will link to a page which allows the user to pick from lots of online map sources, and it also generates the URLs for Google Earth and NASA Worldwind. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] suggestion: wikipedia browsing history attached to my account

suggestion: I would like the option to have my wikipedia browsing history saved to my account, in a searchable form.

Thanks,

Also, is there a part of wikipedia for making suggestions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Edwardotis (talk • contribs) .

You have your contributions saved (see Special:Contributions/Edwardotis) but not your browsing history. You browser probably has a history feature that you could use for this. If you want to make a proposal then I can recommend you to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). --Cherry blossom tree 22:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstars

Is there a rule against awarding yourself a barnstar? If so, I'll gladly remove mine. NIRVANA2764 21:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

No, there's no real rule against it, but it's certainly frowned upon. They're meant to be awarded by someone else. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] February 27

[edit] Tip of the day project

I'm looking for tip ideas for the Wikipedia:Tip of the day project. So I have a question for you: what are questions users ask the most here at the Help Desk? --Go for it! 09:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

How to include images and who publishes Wikipedia are the most common questions. The last one is mostly with regard to citation. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Also "why is my article not showing up in search" and "please tell me to go to the reference desk" come up quite a lot. You can probably get a good feel for it just by flicking up and down this page. Where is your Tip of the day thing going? I imagine most of the people who come here either will never see it or are asking more specialised questions.--Cherry blossom tree 15:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Reply: The tip of the day will be displayed by template (which will be launched April 20), and therefore it can go anywhere deemed useful (like at the top of this page, if the Help Desk team so desires), including user pages. --Go for it! 18:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Where are you planning to put the template though? I was thinking that the template's location would affect who was likely to see it and therefore what questions they were likely to be asking.--Cherry blossom tree 19:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It's too early to say. And, how would the Tip of the day affect questions here? --Go for it! 04:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day: don't forget the headings for help desk queries. :) · rodii · 16:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Even better, once you got a header, don't forget to ask a question below it. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anne Rivers Siddons

You left out ms. siddons (1993) novel "hill towns" from her web page listing of her books.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. - ulayiti (talk) 14:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Banning a school computer...

I have a question when it comes to being banned. Currently, I am on a public school computer and the IP address for some (if not all) of our computers is the same. I was wondering since almost 1200 students have access to this site from this certain IP address, is it possible to prevent from having our IP banned. Apparently a few students like to mess around with pages, causing us to be warned about vandalizm. However, there are many students here who use Wikipedia as not only a great source of information, but an integral part of curing our boredoms (it's one of the only sites we can go to access information that hasn't been banned by Bess/N2H2). Is it possible to prevent banning for us?

It's not possible to prevent you being banned. If sustained vandalism is coming from your school's IP address then it will need to be banned. I have put a note on the talk page of your IP address to say that it is a shared address and that care should be taken before banning it for a more than brief periods. At some point in the future we may be able to implement a system whereby registered users can edit even when their IPs are blocked, which would probably help you in this situation. --Cherry blossom tree 15:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hm, your current IP has never been blocked, so I assume your school must edit through a range. Since I'm not sure what the range is I can't add the note to all the other too. Maybe someone else will be able to sort that out. I'm not sure. --Cherry blossom tree 15:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I imagine this person is editing from another location because of the ban. · rodii · 16:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

That'd make sense. I've removed the shared IP notice for now, awaiting more information. --Cherry blossom tree 16:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Please also note that a ban will still allow you to access and read Wikipedia, it just won't let you edit anything. - Akamad 20:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Could this be the school discussed here, I wonder? · rodii · 21:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so - it hasn't been blocked since January 2nd, and then only for 24 hours, despite someone complaining about it now.--Cherry blossom tree 23:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ohio State 1994 Basketball Team

I am trying to find out who played center for the 1994 Ohio State Buckeye men's basketball team.

You might find out by asking at the Reference desk. --Cherry blossom tree 14:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Is it possible to add pictures that exist in Swedish wikipedia in a english wikipedia article? If yes, how? --Dahlis 15:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but since both wikis use the same software, can't you just click Edit on the page with the picture you want to enter, copy the code that inserts it and then paste it into the Swedish page? Antonrojo 15:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If the picture is on Commons then you could do that (replacing the swedish for 'image:' with 'image:') but otherwise you'll have to upload the picture again to either Commons (if it's a freely licenced picture) or the English Wikipedia and include it in the article in the normal way. --Cherry blossom tree 15:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia's hot keys

On what page can I find a list of Wikipedia's hot keys? (For instance, Alt-F takes you straight to the search box, Alt-Z jumps you to the Main Page, etc. Where are the rest of the key commands listed?) --Go for it! 18:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts?--Cherry blossom tree 19:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] is there a dreft laundry soap for front loaders?

Mary

This kind of question is asked at the Reference desk

[edit] francisco pizarro

I used to look up Wikipedia for information on Francisco Pizarro and there was lots of information on him such as his first expedition and so on. I looked it up today and I was dissappointed to see that there was only one page of informatio on him. Why is this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.41.130.121 (talk • contribs) 20:33, 27 February 2006.

I think you were unfortunate enough to have visited the article when it had been blanked by one or more vandals. It looks alright to me now. --Malthusian (talk) 20:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that in future, if you come across an article that looks suspiciously empty or otherwise might have been vandalised, rather than wait for someone to fix it you can easily find the last good version by clicking 'history' at the top of every page. That page will show a list of every edit made to the page - if you click on the date and time nearest the top that has a username and not an IP address next to it, that will probably be the last unvandalised version. --Malthusian (talk) 20:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colors

I know that there are certain colors that wikipedia recognizes (gold, salmon, lightblue, etc.). Is there a way to make new colors? for instance, to create brightred=EF0102? How does that work? A good way to do this would be to make a template, but that seems like overkill. You know, so I could just call:

 style="bgcolor: {{color-brightred}}"

I just don't see a precedent for this, and I hate being the one to start something brand new :o\ tiZom_(2¢) 23:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

<span style="color: #ff0000"> Bright Red! </span> = Bright Red! Your colour came up a sort of teal on my screen, but that's as may be. For more colours, see Web colors. --Cherry blossom tree 23:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Color names are client-side, not server-side. You can't create a new color name for Wikipedia, because it's the browser's job to identify the color by name. That's why there are standards for this (see the web colors link above). Regardless, you can just specify the color hex value, and that will work everywhere. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 14:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why cant changes in articles be sent to an editor?

Why cant changes in articles be sent to an editor in order to check for vandalism before being published on the page itself? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.174.117.102 (talk • contribs) .

There are just too many edits happening for that to be practical. I did a quick check just then, and there is approximately 1 article edit per second occuring right now. - Akamad 03:13, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Who would this "editor" be? If you edit a page, you are the editor. That's why Wikipedia exists: there wasn't anything at all until the world was allowed to edit it. Wikipedia now seems pretty good, so why do you propose changing the system that produced it? Notinasnaid 13:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] using an image from the German wikipedia server

There is an image in the German wikipedia that I'd like to use in the English version. Is there a way to link directly to the German image, or do I need to download the image from the German server and then upload it to the English server. Blimpguy 02:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

If the image is on Wikimedia Commons, you can link to it as if it was on the English Wikipedia. If it's just on the German Wikipedia, you need to upload it on either Commons (where it can be used by any Wikimedia project, but it needs to be licensed under the GFDL to be there) or the English Wikipedia. - ulayiti (talk) 02:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Just to be nit-picky, but Commons doesnt require files be licensed under the GFDL, only that they be under a free license GeeJo _{(t) (c)} • 18:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV question re: nationality

I've run across the same issue several times, most recently with the Lacković article (see talk page there). The question I've got is: If you have a noble family who've ruled in several countries, and have different language versions of the name, which one should be used? In the case of the Lackfi/Lacković family, Lackfi is Hungarian and Lacković is Croatian. It's a Hungarian family which ruled parts of Croatia, but also other lands which were Hungarian at that time. On one hand, you could go with the origin. But on the other hand, they were more important within the context of Croatian history than Hungarian. So my question is what the policy is here? Is there any? I'm asking because the article is currently using Lacković, but I'm personally for Lackfi. (Which is used in some places like here) I'm not bold enough to change it, lest I start another one of those Gdansk-vs-Danzig wars. --BluePlatypus 11:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter. The naming conventions policy says to use whichever is more common in English, but there are plenty of instances where that isn't applied. --Cherry blossom tree 11:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the name doesn't matter a lot, but consistency does matter. --BluePlatypus 10:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I would look at the Gdansk/Danzig dispute to see what the prevalent view is. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Gdansk/Danzig dispute resulted in a rather complicated compromise. The problem is, that's a city name and this is a family name, and so the arguments aren't the same, either. --BluePlatypus 10:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

They were not more important in Croatian history. Members of the family were appointed viceroys of Croatia several times, appointed count palatines and voivodes of Transylvania. i would say that they were more important in the history of Transylvania, than Croatia. 81.183.150.191 07:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] blanking a talk page

If I'm not mistaken, blanking sections of your own talk page to remove vandalism notices is at the very least frowned upon if not forbidden by policy, correct? Dismas|^(talk) 14:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Frowned upon, but not against policy. tiZom_(2¢) 15:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually it is considered vandalism: the sixteenth type of vandalism on that page. --Malthusian (talk) 15:31, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 02:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox help

I've looked many times to see how I messed up the coding o nthis page: Atromitos. I can't see where my mistake is. To see vaguely how it's supposed to look, check out Akratitos. Thank you. Nach0king 15:23, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems to have been fixed by User:Interiot. If you want anything else then just ask. --Cherry blossom tree 15:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comments

I have created my first new page Samuel Finer. If anyone with more experience of Wikipedianism would like to give it a quick perusal and let me know their opinions on how it could be improved ... please feel free to do so. Just post in my user talk page. AWhiteC 18:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I've made a few comments on that article's talk page. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jonah the whale

Please can you tell me when jonah the whale came to Colchester on the back of a lorry. I think it was in the early 50's —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.4.149.192 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 28 February 2006.

[edit] HMS Truelove

can you help me to find anyone who served on HMS Truelove 1953----1955

thank uou antony mills , (email address removed to protect from spambots) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.93.21.7 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 28 February 2006.

[edit] Redirecting a redirect currently pointing at Shipwreck

Is it possible to find out what pages redirect to Shipwreck? Going through the "What links here" pages seems a bit tedious. The reason I'm asking is because Shipwrecked redirects to Shipwreck, which seems a bit strange to me. It is also misleading, as there is now an article on the reality TV show Shipwrecked (television series). Possibly the redirect for Shipwrecked should go there instead. That would also allow the disambig link at the top of Shipwreck to be removed, as the only reason it is there is that currently a search for "Shipwrecked" takes you (via the redirect from Shipwrecked) to Shipwreck, instead of Shipwrecked (television series). The reason I found this was that I was following a series of links about shipping disasters, and found it very inappropriate to have a link to a reality TV show thrust in my face, when (at first glance) there seems to be little room for confusion between "Shipwrecked" and "Shipwreck". Essentially, I think the redirect from Shipwrecked to Shipwreck is just wrong anyway, so I want to either get rid of the redirect, or redirect it. How would I do either of these? Carcharoth 23:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, shipwrecked should redirect to shipwreck, and then you add at the top of shipwreck the notice "Shipwrecked redirects here. For the TV show, see Shipwrecked (television series)". ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 23:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I've just been investigating further, and there are lots of these "tense" redirects. Burnt redirects to Burn, and Injured redirects to Injury. I have just been reading Wikipedia:Redirect, which was interesting if a bit confusing to take in all at once. I see that "tenses" redirection is covered in the list of examples under "plurals, tenses, etc". I suspect these sort of redirects are to help people when wikilinking articles. For example, they can write "the captain was injured when he fell down the stairs", rather than having to use a piped link as in "the captain was injured when he fell down the stairs". I agree that adding "Shipwrecked redirects here" to the disambig tag removes that source of confusion I was worried about ("why is that disambig link even there?? Shipwrecked is not the same word as shipwreck!"), but I still find it annoying that these disambig links are so prominent when they are clearly irrelevant. Someone looking for Shipwrecked (television series) will be happy the disambig link is there, but someone who has arrived at the article to read about shipwrecks will (as I did) find it annoying that before they can start reading the article, they have to read something about a trivial and frankly rather irrelevant TV series. It is distracting and annoying. Carcharoth 23:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

There were only a few pages pointing at Shipwrecked anyway, so I tidied up the links to point to the correct place and created a disambig page for Shipwrecked. I wasn't sure whether to write the disambiguation page at Shipwrecked or Shipwrecked (disambiguation), but eventually chose the latter, with a redirect from Shipwrecked (leaving open the possibility that an article may appear at Shipwrecked at some future date). Can anyone check I haven't messed things up. One of the disambig links is red, but I put in a working link to the show to explain the context. Does all this look like the tidiest way to deal with this? Carcharoth 00:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page vandalism

I have a question about vandalism of talk pages. The article WUTC (FM) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) has been a constant target of vandalism that I have been reverting. This is not a case of a content dispute, the article is deleted and replaced with a claim that management at WUTC is incompetent. Now the person has taken to just placing the info on the talk page instead. What is the proper way to deal with someone circumventing the system in this way. Is it ok to revert the talk page, or should it be prodded, or AfD. Thanks Not my leg 23:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages are generally given more lee-way than articles, but I think it's fine to delete anything that's not directly discussing the contents of the article. Some of our talk pages show up quite highly in search engines so we shouldn't allow people to circumvent our editorial policies to get their material seen by the back door. I would just blank the page rather than deleting it, since it's quicker and a deleted page can easily be recreated anyway.--Cherry blossom tree 00:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I would tread lightly here. What is vandalism on the article page might not be on the talk page, especially since it's the very first edit. I would consider trying to engage the anon rather than just deleting. · rodii · 02:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] March 1

[edit] A redirect question

~~I just merged the articles Mount Riverview and Mount Riverview, New South Wales. I am having trouble getting the redirect from Mount Riverview to Mount Riverview, New South Wales to work.~~

~~Blarneytherinosaur 01:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)~~

Nevermind. It's working now. Blarneytherinosaur 01:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP article count

Includes stubs, anyone know how to do a stub count? Seems to me that an article count sans stubs should be an interesting metric that seems missing. hydnjo talk 03:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Well you have to better define "stub." There are articles which are short and not tagged with some variation of {{stub}}. There are also some that are tagged that are actually now longer than what most would consider a stub. —WAvegetarian•_{_{CONTRIBUTIONS}}^{^TALK}• ^{^EMAIL}• 03:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You might be interested in User:R. fiend/How many articles does Wikipedia really have? · rodii · 03:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, OK thanks folks. And for the record my inquiry had to do with the objective "stub count", how many articles carry a stub notice rather than the subjective question of how many should carry a stub notice. I certainly would not have expected a way to review a count of the latter. hydnjo talk 23:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] how did the wounded knee massacre start

how did the wounded knee massacre start?

Please read the instructions at the top of this page in full. It will save you time and effort in the long run. Notinasnaid 14:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

To elaborate, the Help Desk is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Your question belongs at the Reference Desk. -- Nataly a 18:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to give a website link to a name

My name is mentioned under Mentalism, as one of the Canadians who is of note. Is it possible to include my website information in this section, along with the others mentioned?

My website address is: www.ThoughtControl.ca

Many thanks,

Thomas Baxter —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.36.186.190 (talk • contribs) 16:00, 1 March 2006.

Including external links can be contentious, especially if someone adds their own website, due to problems of vanity. See WP:EL for a fuller discussion on external links in articles. In this case, I've been bold and added a link to your website at the bottom of the article. Any editor can remove it if they feel that it's not relevant, and if you disagree with them you can discuss it at the article's talk page (this system is known as bold-revert-discuss).

The syntax, in case you were wondering, is [http://www.google.com Google] - that example produces Google. --Malthusian (21!) (talk) 16:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Updating Haitian musicians list

Hi,

My user name is sanbakreyol, and I'm a new user. I wanted to update the list of Haitian musicians. I just added the bio of Boulo Valcourt, and wanted to entitle it and post it on the right section.

1o) First, how can I locate this section? 2o) How can I update it properly?

Thanks,

Sanbakreyol

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sanbakreyol (talk • contribs).

I suggest you read some of the material at Help:Contents, perhaps Wikipedia:Introduction_2 or Wikipedia:Newcomers_help_page might be directly useful. Looking at your contributions, you apparently edited the Wikipedia:Sandbox which is a place for test edits and added the bio in French. The text you wrote is recoverable, but this is the English Wikipedia. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to change vlink color in Wikipedia?

This seems a little too basic for the Computer Help Desk, so I'll ask here. I've tried to find the answer in the Help documentation, and in the User Preference pages, but I guess I'm not looking for the right thing. I would like to change the color of visited links in my browser while it is using Wikipedia, because the blue regular link and the purple visited link are just too close for me to distinguish, either because of my vision or my computer's monitor. (Outside Wikipedia, I use red for visited links, but don't want to do that here since redlinks have a different meaning.) I don't see this in the Preference pages... is this something I could do via Monobook.css or Monobook.js, and if so, how? (I am not adept at CSS or JavaScript.) Thanks, MCB 20:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You should edit User:MCB/monobook.css and add a:visited { color: #00ffff; } with 00ffff changed for a colour of your choosing. You can pick one from Web colours.--Cherry blossom tree 21:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

That did the trick -- thank you! MCB 21:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'd like to create my on wiktionary

Hi - Do you have any templates that I can use to create my own wiktionary - using JSPWiki? Thanks

You're not asking a very specific question, so you won't get a very specific answer, but I'll try. Wikipedia (and Wiktionary) use MediaWiki, so any templates we have may not work on JSPWiki. If there are any that you want to use then you are free to do so under the terms of the GFDL. Of course you're perfectly welcome to work on Wiktionary yourself without the bother. --Cherry blossom tree 22:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The term "Wiktionary" belongs to the WikiMedia Foundation. You would need to call your version something else. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Within an article, how can i add a picture?

Wiki-star: I see many articles with pictures that provide visual images of the Topic. I would like to know, step by step, how i can also add an image to articles of my choosing.

Thanks!

Right, lets go!

Make sure that the image in question is available under a free licence or that there is a valid fair use claim for it.
Go to Special:Upload and upload your image as myimage.png or whatever.
Go to point in the article you'd like to add the image to and include the text [[image:myimage.png]].
See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax to do fancier things with it.
Sit back, light a pipe and admire your work.

Have fun. --Cherry blossom tree 22:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IP address

Hi I have 2 computers, one on the first floor and one on the second floor. Will they both have the same IP address or will each one have a distinct and unique address??

Assumeing they both conect to the internet though the same phone line then yes.Geni 22:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

"Yes" doesn't really answer an either/or question. :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I can answer the question with a little more detail. Yes: either they will both have the same IP address, or each one will have a distinct and unique address. OR, the IP address of either one may change. All of these can happen, and unfortunately, we could no more answer this than tell you what colour the walls are painted, because it depends on what equipment you have in your offices and how your connection to the internet is done. What you can do is visit Wikipedia from both, to check the IP address. They might be subject to change, but if they are different today, they are likely to remain different from each other. Notinasnaid 08:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

If you are using a router to network your computers (which you should have to in order to use one phone line) then you computers will have different IP Addresses. If you are not using a router and just directly connecting the computers into the phoneline, I don't see how that's possible, but you would only have one IP Address then.

[edit] March 2

[edit] Learning basics of Computer Hardware

I want to learn the basics to maintain my computer healthy without breakdowns - like dll file not found, etc —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tomv17 (talk • contribs).

This type of question belongs on the Science section of the reference desk. The help desk (this page) is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please click here to post your question in its proper place. Thanks. -- Nataly a 03:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lecture citation

I'm certain this has been answered somewhere at some point, but looking through the FAQs and WP:CITE didn't bring it up for me. I recently attended a lecture by Paul Rusesabagina and heard a couple of things which could be added to his article. Both would be of the nature that a citation would be appropriate, however, I'm not sure if WP:V guidelines consider that of sufficient... ah... "reliability" for use here. So my question has two parts: is a public lecture an appropriate resource for mention of the information presented therein at Wikipedia? And if it is, how do I cite it? Thanks. Deadsalmon 05:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It's borderline I think. It's not verifiable in so far as readers can't go and check what he said in the lecture. If it's at all possible to find another source (either in things he's written or reports of this or other lectures) then that would be better, but failing that I'd go with the lecture and see if you can get away with it. I've no idea how to footnote it though.--Cherry blossom tree 22:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey, it's a start. Thanks. Deadsalmon 23:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Secret-swing.jpg

User:Emmy withwings uploaded this with a source but without copyright information and according to the photographer's website all images are copyrighted. Can someone with a little more experience than me ask for it to be released with a suitable licence? Otherwise, this image should disappear ASAP. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redoing a redirect and updating links

I am considering changing the redirect for Ptolemaic found here to a disambiguation page for Ptolemaic, distinguishing between Ptolemaic dynasty and Ptolemaic system and also Ptolemy, plus other uses if I think of them. I clicked on the "What links here" for the current redirect (see here) and there is a list of about 43 links, not all of which should be redirecting to Ptolemaic dynasty (which is where the redirect is currently pointing). Is there an easy way to clean this up, other than manually changing them all? Incidentially, I tracked down a redirection of a mis-spelling (Ptolomaic) to here, so that needs sorting out as well. Carcharoth 14:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, there isn't. The best I can suggest is to make the disambiguation page and then go through all the pages on what links here and use Popups to disambiguate each of them in turn. It's not a trivial task, but much quicker than doing it all manually.--Cherry blossom tree 21:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That looks like a handy tool. Thanks! Carcharoth 09:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist

I have a suggestion to make.Currently, the 'Watch' tab at the top of the page, when clicked, immediately adds that page to my watchlist. I think that most often people might click on it out of curiosity as well.

So, you could either provide what the link is for when clicking on the tab and get the user click if he wants to add them to his watchlist. Or else rename 'watch' to the more conventional 'bookmark' as this is the commonly used term for such an activity.

Thanks

Anand —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wikixoox (talk • contribs) 14:22, 2 March 2006.

To make suggestions you really want to go to the village pump. Though personally, I think you might find resistance to both ideas. Firstly, there's no need to add an extra step into putting a page on your watchlist. Certainly people only click 'watch' out of curiosity once, whereas they click it normally hundreds of times.

Also, the watchlist is not like a list of bookmarks - if you bookmark something, it's because you want to come back to it later. But the point of 'watching' a page is to monitor the changes made to it. I've got plenty of pages on my watchlist that I've never even read and don't intend to, but to which I've reverted vandalism or soapboxing and monitor in order to look out for more.

If you'd like a proper list of bookmarks, why not add the pages to a list on your user page? --Malthusian (talk) 14:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why can some websites have articles, and not others?

I've seen articles on Wikipedia about websites that are active and popular, so together me and my forum staff recreated a nice, long, article to share, since our board is fairly active and big in it's fandom. And yet the next day, it's deleted. Why is that? There are articles on other fansites, so why was mine deleted? It doesn't seem fair.

Kitty17794 15:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, so everything in it has to be verified and written in a neutral point of view. If you're writing about yourself, or something closely related to yourself such as your Internet forum, that's very hard to do. And if a website is small, it's difficult if not impossible to find reliable sources that can back up the information in the article. You might also want to look at the guidelines for inclusion of websites - those will tell you why we've included some websites. --Malthusian (talk) 15:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

No contributions have been made under the username above, and without any information on what article you're talking about, it's impossible to say. However, most such deletions happen because the site in question is deemed non-notable according to WP:WEB, or the article doesn't assert that the site is notable (see WP:CSD). But there could be many reasons. What article was it?

Also, it's worth noting that "sharing information" isn't really the goal of Wikipedia so much as "writing an encyclopedia." The two things seem more similar than they are. Wikipedia is not a web directory or a compendium of all information anyone wants to share. It's a collection of articles on subjects that are worth having in a general reference work. No doubt there are many articles here that fail that standard, but that's no justification for adding more. · rodii · 15:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Not every person on earth gets an encyclopedia article on wikipedia. The same goes for websites. To start with, they need to have some impact on the world or have large amounts of visitors. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Altering signature

How exactly do you alter your signature. I mean to use sub/superscript and colours. I can see the code being used, for example:

[[User:Fetofs|<font color="blue">F</font>]][[WP:EA|<font color="green">''e''</font>]][[User:Fetofs|<font color="blue">tofs</font>]]''' <sup>[[User_talk:Fetofs|<font color="maroon">Hello!</font>]]</sup>

for

F e tofs ^Hello!

But is there an automatic way of doing it? --Stu 16:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, put the code in the signature field in your Preferences and select the raw signature box. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
- Or, create a "sig" template user page, like I did: "{{Subst:User:Kaimbridge/Sig}}~~~~~"——the "Subst" makes it "static", so that it doesn't get reprocessed through the Wiki servers each time (and change the sig's time! P=). ~Kaimbridge~16:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Kaimbridge,you might want to take a look at WP:SIG#Things_to_avoid... · rodii · 18:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming you know enough HTML to create a signature like the one above.) Click on the "my preferences" link at the top of the page and paste your code into the box that says "nickname." Then--important---check the "Raw signature" box just below it, and save. Then just type four tildes (~~~~) to create a timestamped signature like · rodii · 16:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah right, didn't know you could just paste the HTML in there. I'll look into doing the sig template thing too. Cheers all! Stu ^{’Bout ye!} 16:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you do. Typing four tildes (~~~~) is a lot easier than inserting HTML each time you have to sign. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding that "Sign"

Wikistar: Hi again! Wikistar here, and i'm baffled at a markup code. I'm confused at the code for creating a Table. The code itself is self explanatory, but theres a symbol in it that i cannot find on my keybaord. Its that vertical line! You know, the little line you see before most of the words in a table. Where can i find this symbol?

Thanks!

Are you using a standard US keyboard? It might be different with other layuouts, but in the US, the vertical line is usually at the far right above the return/enter key, the shift character of backslash. · rodii · 18:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikistar: Oh i found it! Thanks alot! You're the best.

[edit] Redirect is Incorrect

I'm new to Wikipedia and don't feel comfortable editing a page. However I found that "Alumen" gets redirected to Aluminum. This is incorrect. Alumen is a separate thing. Although the latin of aluminum is alumen. Can someone change that please so that there is a stub for Alumen with maybe a fork for Aluminum? Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.134.141.109 (talk • contribs).

Well, I've removed the redirect, but I don't know anything about alumen so I couldn't write anything. Please go to Alumen and write whatever you know about the subject (above the stub notice). Also, remember the guideline Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages and if you ever see anything you have a good reason to believe is incorrect, go ahead and edit it - That's what Wikipedia is all about. If you make a mistake, there will always be someone who will fix it. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Updates on Wikipedia

For a while now I noticed small differences on Wikipedia, or larger ones (e.g. the announcement that e-mail confirmation was enabled), and until this announcement assumed that they were changes in the MediaWiki software itself. Only now I understand that it is not true, and that these are internal EnWiki changes. My question is, is there a page on Wikipedia where such changes are proposed and discussed? I've seen many policy-related discussions and such, but they usually seem to end with no result, often because none of the users discussion have the authority to do anything. So, again, is there a page where changes are discussed which actually matter? I'm asking becasue I'd like to know of such impending changes, if possible. -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 19:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, communications are not a Wikimedia strongpoint. There are various pages on Wikipedia where things like this get discussed - the village pump, administrators' noticeboard and occasionally others if a discussion happens to start there, or if a page is made specifically for a discussion to happen. There are various mailing lists. The relevant ones are probably WikiEN-l, Wikipedia-l, Foundation-l and Wikitech-l. Also various IRC channels. The shift to requiring e-mail verification wasn't discussed, though, it was just a necessary reaction to a situation but was explained on Wikitech-l.--Cherry blossom tree 21:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit the Title

Wiki-star: I really apprecaite the help you wikipedians out there are providing. I'm still baffled of a few more things. But the more answers i recieve, the more knowledgable i become of the site. With that being said, i would like to know how to change the title of an article? I know how to change the sub-title, but how do i change the title?

Thanks Again!

Basically, there should be a tab just to the right of the "history" tab at the top of the page, labeled "move", which is used to rename an article. But new users can't use it, and I'm not sure what is the exact amount of time an account needs to exist for this to be enabled. If you don't have this button, you can ask someone to do it for you. Regardless, when posting in talk pages, type ~~~~ to place your signature and timestamp. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] please remove nasty cartoons right now

DEAR SIR,

I WANT YOU TO REMOVE VERY CONTROVERSIAL CARTOON IMAGES FROM YOUR SITE. THESE TYPE OF NASTY THINGS CAN BADLY IMPACT ON YOUR SITE'S GOOD REPUTE AND YOUR SITE MAY BECOME CONTROVERSIAL ALSO.

REGARDS,

DAVID Ŵ¢ąĠþ

Assuming you're talking about those Danish cartoons, then no, we won't remove them. We have a page on what Wikipedia is not, and among those things we clearly state that Wikipedia is 'not censored. Those cartoons are relevant content and don't violate any copyright laws where Wikipedia is hosted, so they're unlikely to be removed. Also, take a look at our disclaimer. On a side note, Wikipedia had always been controversial, per se... ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 20:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It would help greatly if you were to let us know which cartoon images you find offensive. Dismas|^(talk) 20:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia has a pretty good reputation so far. Anyway, please read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored. If you are uncomfortable with an image you see in an article, you can be bold and remove it - But you'll have to be prepared to explain this edit, or it will be reverted. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Or you could simply not watch articles which may contain material you find offensive. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Beguine Headache

Hey, I submitted about two paragraphs of what I thought were necessary clarifications about Beguine orders. I copied the original article with my two paragraphs added into the edit window. It comes up with the old article preceeding it, and I cannot figure out for the life of me how to delete the old text. Can someone please fix that? I've been up and down trying to figure out how I can correct what I did, but I think I need to deffer to someone with more editing experience.

Thank you and sorry, X los

Sorry, I couldn't understand you. Please be more specific about the articles in question and the operation you were trying to perform. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There are two copies of the Beguine article on the page. The top one needs deleted. They are identical except that the bottom copy has two additional paragraphs. When I go into the edit window, it only shows the bottom copy of the article. How do I delete the top copy, which is superflous?

X los

Okay, here are a few comments:

Actually there are 3 copies.
I would not advise to delete the top copy - It is the only one containing the Wikilinks. The bottom copies, except for the additional paragraphs, should be deleted.
I don't see the problem, when I edit the page all the 3 copies are shown.
I'll try to clean it up.

-- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Check it out now: Beguine. I only noticed one additional paragraph. If you wish to add anything, please be more careful. And one more thing - When posting in talk pages, type ~~~~ to put your signature and timestamp. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery Row Building..

I am trying to find out if the Gallery Row Building at 409 7th St, NW in Washington DC has ever won an award for it's unusual design. I am thinking that it might have won an award as the building has a weird diagramal shape to it. To go further the steps inside go in a square shape. So far my search has come up with very little. Any help that you might be able to provide me would be very helpful.

Thank you Stephen Hosmer [email deleted for your protection]

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that's what this Help Desk is for). For your convenience, here's the link: Reference Desk (when you get there, just select the relevant section, and ask away). I hope this helps.-- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SERIAL NUMBER LOCATION.

I don't know what your question is, but in all likelyhood it belongs on the reference desk. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The given for getting on the IRC Chat does not work

This link #wikipedia-en is given in Wikipedia for access to an IRC Chat forum for Wikipedia users. That link is broken or out of service ... it just does not do anything but bring up an error message. - mbeychok 23:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That is a valid IRC link which works for me. I'm guessing that you don't have an IRC client. See Internet Relay Chat and List of IRC clients for more information.--Cherry blossom tree 23:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It would depend on whether your browser (and any helper apps / plugins / etc. installed to support it) supports the "irc" URI scheme. (The Mozilla/SeaMonkey suite does.) *Dan T.* 23:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Author?

Who is the author of the Samuel Hughes article? (history)

I take it you're talking about citing Wikipedia? If not you can get a list from this history tab at the top of the page.--Cherry blossom tree 00:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] March 3

[edit] Create a New Article

Wiki-star: Hi again! Don't worry, i'm slowly figuring out the site. Soon, i'll master it! But until then, i'm trying to figure out how to create a new article within an article! You know, like a sub article, under a big one.

Can someone tell me how to make a new article?

Thanks again! You guys rock!!

Thankyou for asking a very polite question. There's lots of ways - the easiest is probably to copy "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyNewArticle" (with MyNewArticle changed to the title fo your article) into the address bar. There will be a link on the page that brings up saying "Start the MyNewArticle article". You click on that and you're off to the races. Good luck with it.

Another brief tip, you can sign your talk page comments by typing four tildes (~~~~) rather than doing it manually like so: --Cherry blossom tree 00:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It actually is considered better to create pages by linking to them in another article (making a red link like this one), following the link to the page, and editing it. This method is preferred because it prevents orphaned articles from forming. For more information, visit Help:Starting a new page.--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 02:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC).

That would help you make the first article. However, if you want a subpage, it would be titled MyNewArticle/MyNewSubpage. Any subpage created this way automatically links back to the larger article. This is mostly used for archiving and administrative stuff, though. Good question, anyway. Cheers! Deltabeignet 05:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] P

Hi. I'm couldn't find an article explains the dictions of the letter P, for example why "psychodelic" sounds like "sychodelic". Is there such article? psychomelo ₍di_s c _ussion) 00:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried the Language section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there. For your convenience, here's the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps.--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 02:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Pictures

Wiki-star: Believe it or not, this is the final question before i have completelty mastered everything about an article! It is very imperative that the person or people who respond to this question bear in mind that i am still new. I need you to slow down, and explain everything!!!

The first question i have is, can i upload a Picture onto Wikipedia using Microsoft Word?

Hi Wiki-star, when you post on discussion pages, like this one, please type four tildes like this: ~~~~ after your post. This will sign your name. Johntex\^talk 03:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
As to your quesiton, I do not understand. Do you have a document (like a Word Art drawing) in Microsoft Word which you wish to upload? Johntex\^talk 03:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
This may help you: Help:Images and other uploaded files. It gets into a lot of detail. Check it out and write us back if you still have trouble. Johntex\^talk 03:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You can't upload a picture using Microsoft Word, you can upload one that you have made with Microsoft Word. You would have to save this as a picture (in a format such as .jpg, .png, .gif and so on) and then upload it to Wikipedia. You should do this by going to Special:Upload and following the instructions there. --Cherry blossom tree 11:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tables

How do you put a table on the right side of the page? You can post it on my talk page. Please and thank you! Funnybunny 03:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

tiZom has answered on user's talkpage. - Akamad 10:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name changes

There's a pretty big backlog at the name changes page; if there's an admin reading this that has a little while to go through some of the names there, it'd be a big help. Thanks. Deadsalmon 04:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] noinclude and includeonly

I can't find the documentation on these two commands. I need to provide links to them in a Tip of the day I'm writing. --Go for it! 05:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

While I'm on the subject, I can't find any of the angle commands. I don't even know what the category is called. Is there a page that lists all the wiki commands, and please provide the link. I'd greatly appreciate it! --Go for it! 05:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe this is what you're looking for. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] what are angle-bracketed commands called?

For example, is <noinclude> called "the noinclude command", or is there another name for it? --Go for it! 05:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

In HTML, they're called tags (i.e., the <noinclude> tag) ...is that what you're looking for? tiZom_(2¢) 05:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] &nbsp:

Tip of the day...

Search box bookmarklet for your browser

Bookmarklets are javascript programs that are stored as bookmarks in your browser, and which activate when you click on them. Here's one that conducts a search in Wikipedia on any text you happen to have highlighted in whichever window you are in (or if no text is highlighted, presents you with a popup search box): ~axel/bookmarklet.html. See also the Wikr bookmarklet.

[edit] Deleted Article

Hello

Several months ago I spent some time writing articles on lesser-known computer languages, including one called Ubercode. Today I went back to view the articles and the Ubercode one has been deleted (here is the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=delete&page=Ubercode )

The reason given was:

02:58, 26 February 2006 Capitalistroadster deleted "Ubercode" (Listed for five days as Prod article with no objection)

I spent several hours writing this article and now it's just gone, I have viewed this person's home page and he does not even have software or programming down as an interest. So my question is:

1. Can I get the page back?

2. Why do people delete content when I have spent some time writing an article? At the moment I feel discouraged from adding to the wikipedia.

Thanks, Bill

Your page was listed on WP:PROD which means that someone thought it merited deletion. If no-one has objected to this after 5 days then the article will be deleted. Capitalistroadster was merely following policy rather than making any subjective judgement on the quality of the article. If you wish to have the article undeleted then you should list it on Deletion Review where a discussion will take place on whether or not this should happen. You will have to explain why you think this article should be in Wikipedia.

Articles are deleted from Wikipedia all the time. Most of these are things people have written about their garage band or whatever and no-one would dispute this, however much work has been put into the article. Sometimes, though, the process makes mistakes. I'm sorry you feel that's happened in this case and wish you luck getting it undeleted.--Cherry blossom tree 10:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for the feedback. How can I find out why the article was deleted? And is the original text of the article kept anywhere (I have not archived it locally). My concern is, there is a long list of computer programming languages and I was gradually going through the list writing short articles about the ones I am familiar with. This action seems to make my efforts pointless - Bill. Lingolanguage 11:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

A reason is usually supplied when the article is proposed for deletion. Unfortunately this is deleted with the article. My guess (from what you've said) is that someone thought the subject of the article was not sufficiently notable for Wikipedia. Obviously there should be articles on very well known programming languages and there shouldn't be articles for ones that no-one but the creator uses. There's no hard and fast line for what can and can't be included but I presume that the person who proposed it for deletion thought it was too close to the latter. You presumably disagree with this.

As far as getting it undeleted, I've just realised I was mistaken before - it's easier than I thought. The Deletion Review page says "Articles deleted under the Wikipedia:Proposed deletion procedure ... may be undeleted, without a vote, on reasonable request." So if you make a reasonable request on that page then I imagine that your article will be undeleted fairly quickly. There may (or may not) follow a formal discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion about the article.--Cherry blossom tree 11:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again for your help - I appreciate your time on this. The only reason for deletion I can find is "Listed for five days as Prod article with no objection". To someone who knows more about programming than Wiki this is not very useful, it does not explain what a 'Prod' article is or why a 'Prod' article is not permitted. My questions are:

1. Does the deleted text exist anywhere or do I need to re-type it?

2. Is there any point to me trying to spend time filling out the more obscure programming languages by writing articles on them?

3. There are other short articles I have created about languages - are these likely to be deleted also? Do I have to check back weekly? I am fairly new to Wiki, and when hours of effort just 'vanish' it takes most of the fun out of using Wiki.

4. Can I just re-create the page? I looked at the Request for undeletion page and it looked very long and full of bitter disputes.

Thanks - Lingolanguage 12:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I've not been clear enough here. Wikipedia has (off the top of my head) three methods for deletion. Articles for deletion is where a discussion/vote on the merits of an article is carried out and a decision come to. Speedy Deletion is for articles that clearly do not belong in Wikipedia, such as where the only content "my mate gaz is cool!!!1" Proposed Deletion (referred to as Prod) falls somewhere between the two. This is where someone proposes the article for deletion and states a reason. If no-one objects to this after five days then the article is deleted. The reason given for deleting the article is that it has gone through the Proposed deletion process, rather than the original reason for it being put through.

I know next to nothing about programming so I can't really comment on whether particular languages are likely to be deleted or not. If a reasonable number of people use them then I think they would usually be fine. I understand that this is very frustrating when all you want to do is add a bit of knowledge.

The deleted text is still saved and can be recovered at any time - it is just not viewable by readers. You could just recreate the page, but you would have to type it all out again. I've requested that the article be undeleted. I've never done it before but according to the policy there (for articles deleted via prod/Proposed Deletion) it should happen fairly painlessly. After that it may go to Articles for Deletion but I don't think it would be deleted again. --Cherry blossom tree 13:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

To add to what CBT said, if you want to insure your new articles in the future don't go to PROD (and you think they might), you should probably explain in the Talk (Discussion) page of the article in question why the subject (in your case, the programming language) is important. This doesn't mean your article wouldn't be deleted for sure, but it would have an AfD (Articles for Deletion) vote at least, which is a long process and the article would probably not be deleted without your input in such a case. -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 13:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again CBT and Ynhockey. I understand about the process using 'Articles for Deletion' for the normal course of events, and 'Speedy Deletion' for nonsense articles. PROD seems to be a new form of deletion, and it seems in this case the article was deleted simply because someone proposed deleting it under PROD. I spent some time looking and I can find no other feedback or other reasons given for deleting the article. Anyway, thanks for requesting the undeletion, in future I will add a comment on the Talk page for new language articles requesting the article is not deleted using PROD, also I will re-visit the other language pages I did and add this same comment - Bill. Lingolanguage 14:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, someone would have supplied a reason when they submitted it to PROD but they would have put the reason on the page itself and so it would have been deleted with the page. Which isn't the best way of working, I grant you.--Cherry blossom tree 15:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

For the record, the admin who deleted the article does have a choice. Prod relies on the fact that at least two people review the article before it gets deleted--the nominator and the closing admin. The admin only deletes it if they agree. NickelShoe 16:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

User:R.Koot put the Prod tag on the article with the explanation, "non-notable programming language; vanity article". You might want to discuss it with him/her. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I've undeleted this. Someone can take it to WP:AFD if they like. -Splash^talk 03:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tabs

Is there a way to do tabs on Wikipedia, by which I mean having text start at certain places? The problem that I have is making lists with two or columns. Here's an example:

Blue 1985232
Red 665
Green 23265
Orange 23

It would be nice if there was a way for the second column to start at the same place. I've been using tables for this, which is inconvenient, since I could find nothing about tabs in the Wikipedia namespace. Thanks, Kjkolb 13:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Tabs aren't really part of the HTML paradigm. Tables are the way to go. · rodii · 14:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Aww, too bad. -- Kjkolb 14:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You could just preformat the data. You can do that by putting <pre> tags around it, or just a space at the start of each line (edit this to see what I've done):

Blue   1985232
Red        665
Green    23265
Orange      23

HTH. It's pretty ugly, though. --pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk: Al Lewis

This article discussion is blocked because there is a spam link in it; is there any way to determine which link this is? I am trying to add the following to the discussion: Voting records say 1923; he would have registered to vote (probably) long before starting to lie about his age. Daemon8666 13:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.

I've removed the offending link. It was to a URL shortening site, which are blocked because they can be used to circumvent the spam blacklist. --Cherry blossom tree 14:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] what are the rules for binomial nomiclature?

i enjoyn this site a lot

Do you want binomial nomenclature? If not then you want the reference desk.--Cherry blossom tree 14:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why do users still ask Reference Desk questions here?

That's the biggest mystery I've seen so far on Wikipedia, and it flabbergasts me. --Go for it! 14:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Could it be because the 2 departments share the word "Desk" in their titles? --Go for it! 14:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Not sure thats it, as Wikipedia:Newcomers help page gets a lot of reference desk type of questions as well. Probably people not reading instructions properly, which is a common trait... Petros471 15:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious? It's in order for the users involved in the development of the {{RD}} template to have something to do. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:05, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I believe this question would belong on the talk page of the Help Desk. I sympathise with you though.--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 04:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the reason this article is on this page is because it's talkin about entries on this page.--The Billygoat

Most people who know squat about Wikipedia come here through the "Contact Wikipedia" link. As far as I know it clearly states which questions should be asked where, which is restated at the top of the page. I think it's just laziness. I wonder though, why we rarely get help desk qeuestions on the reference desk... - Mgm|^(talk) 19:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

- I thinks it's a question of size ratios, there are a lot more questions belonging on the refdesk than belong here, so we get some leakage.--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 01:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
What do people have to say about the question asked below? It seems to fit in both departments.--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 01:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think this particular question fits in neither. It fits in Wikipedia's search box. If it would be a bit more specific I guess you would be correct.-- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turning off a specific edit button

Is there a way to turn off the [edit] button for a particular heading, while leaving all the other edit buttons on the page unaffected? --Go for it! 14:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I take it you know about __NOEDITSECTION__ stopping all section editing links? As far as I'm aware, there's no way of stopping just a single one from appearing. --Cherry blossom tree 15:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Just curious, why would you want to do this? Dismas|^(talk) 15:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I am thoroughly confused as whether an image I uploaded and is displayed has been properly tagged. Although I am well versed in reading and writing in English, the instruction appear to me only in Latin. Could someone please check the image I posted under the "Log Home" page is properly tagged...or will it be deleted in a week. If it's not right, how do I fix it?

Thank you, Bill

For those that want a link, it's here: Image:Handcrafted log home.jpg. I'm not great with the licenses, just wanted to provide the link for people. Dismas|^(talk) 18:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added the most basic self-made public domain tag ({{PD-self}}). Assuming the description in the image page is correct, of course. -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 20:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wiki conundrum

What is a wiki?Architect1 21:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

See wiki. Dismas|^(talk) 21:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section below userboxes

I'm unable to get my user page right. I have thre columns of user boxes and I have some links below that, which are in a different section. However, I couldn't get it to work right - the last section would appear to the right of the userboxes, not below. I had to add several == sections of "filling space" to get it to move the last section down below the user boxes, instead of to the right. Line breaks didn't help. How can I get the last section below the userboxes without the kludge? Bubba73 (talk), 21:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

While there may be an easier and less backwards way, the way I use occasionally is to put the text below the userboxes in a DIV with CLEAR:BOTH; So it would look something like:

{{User Canada}}
<div style="clear:both">
Text here. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
</div>

-- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 21:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks, that did it! Bubba73 (talk), 22:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Just using <br style="clear:both"/> should do it. · rodii · 00:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I had tried already several plain <br>s to move it down, but that didn't help. But thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 01:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Just plain <br> definitely won't work. It has to have either clear="both" or style="clear:both" as an attribute. · rodii · 01:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, both DIV and BR with that seemed to work just the same. Is there a reference for this kind of stiff? Most of what I learn I get by looking at other people's pages. Thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 01:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much is documented on Wikipedia for how to use HTML, although any HTML tutorial covering floating elements will explain this. You can also use {{clear}} if it's easier to remember. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE: INFORMATION

Can I add my own biography on here?

Only if you are notable enough to appear in such an encyclopedia. See WP:N for more information. If you're like most people, myself included, you probably won't :o\ ...but you are always welcome to include personal information on your User page (User:Minorkcalles)! tiZom_(2¢) 00:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Slight correction -- you can't write your own biography, it must be done by others. However, you are welcome to correct any errors in your biography, should one be written about you. The notability requirements mentioned by tiZom still apply, though. Deadsalmon 06:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] March 4

the last out post in j&k is known as

[edit] Audio Pronunciation guides

Have you ever considered providing an audio pronunciation link for certain words that appear in Wikipedia or the Wiktionary? It seems that the Wiki would be capable of supporting such a feature. Do other considerations make you question its implicaiton, such as cost, space, copyright, etc.? Any insight on the matter would be much appreciated. Cheers. 07:55, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Some words already have prononciation guides (both in IPA and sound file). I would imagine, it's impractical to do it for every word as there's hundreds of regional variants of English. How would we ensure people find a neutral spoken version? - Mgm|^(talk) 19:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Putting redirects in categories

Is there a policy on putting redirect pages into categories?

Looking at Category:Invasive species, I was surprised that Cane Toad wasn't there. The article is there but under Giant Neotropical Toad which is the redirect from Cane Toad. I've added the category to the redirect but wondered if this is generally thought to be a good thing.

I can see some advantages (users are more likely to find the article they are looking for or spot one that is of interest) but also problems (big categories will become even bigger if the same article appears multiple times with different titles). --Cavrdg 07:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

iirc, it is a technical limitation of the mediawiki software that is used on this site. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
- At least it was in previous versions of the software... so the policy has not been revisited since. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  - Thanks. I'll raise it on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and get some views. --Cavrdg 17:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need vertical symbol like { ${p \choose q}$ } without ()

Can Wiki reproduce this?

Best I could find is this:

{ ${p \choose q}$ }

Obviously I'd like to insert numbers for p and q as well!

Any help is appreciated. I could find ANY help on "math" codes besides examples in existing articles.

Tom Ruen 09:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Typesetting of mathematical formulas is a good place to start.

It has links to various resources including Help:Formula which has

\begin{Bmatrix} x & y \\ z & v \end{Bmatrix} inside math tags

for

$\begin{Bmatrix} x & y \\ z & v \end{Bmatrix}$

So, your example would give $\begin{Bmatrix} p \\ q \end{Bmatrix}$ --Cavrdg 10:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful! Thanks! Tom Ruen 11:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo disappeared

Kindly check this Opus Dei and politics and the photo of Antonio Fontan ceased to appear. I wonder what happened. Thank you. Marax 10:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I must say I'm puzzled. The breakage happened with this edit, which seems completely innocuous. It's not just some transient problem, as neither purging the server cache nor actually doing a trivial edit helps. The image shows up correctly in the edit preview when editing either the specific section or the level-2 section it is contained in, but not when editing the entire article. At this point I'm out of ideas. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Confirmed. Very strange. · rodii · 14:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. · rodii · 15:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Rodii and Ilmari Karonen, for your efforts. Highly appreciated. Cheers! Marax 02:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem. For the record, the issue was that the image above this on the page, like that one, has a wikilink inside the caption, but the second bracket was missing, and somehow this caused the brackets to get out of sync farther down the page. It was tricky to work out and made me wonder whether there's the equivalent of an HTML validator for wiki-syntax. Anyone know? · rodii · 02:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Pictures Version 2

Wiki-star: Hello once again fellow wikipedians! I am on the verge of mastering this site! I'm looking forward to writing very successful articles! I love writing and helping people, and this site is going to make my dreams come true. Ok, so i found an image: TFA Title. Click on the link provided. Now, this is one of the many images i will be inserting on the many articles i wish to edit or write. When i uploaded this image, i am given several warnings that it will be deleted within a week. This is due to lack of license. What is this asking of me?

How can i find the license of this image? What is it that i need to know, in order to make safer and more confident decisions?

If these questions are answered, then you won't here from me for a long time (except in articles of course). I appreciate all the support wikipedians, you guys are absolutely awsome.

Thanks again!

Basically you must provide 'proof' why your image is fit for Wikipedia. Of course, this isn't real proof, but other users will trust you not to upload copyrighted material. Some copyrighted material can be uploaded under fair use (if that's the case, choose one of the fair use license from the drop-down, like TV screenshot or Book cover). Non-copyrighted material can also be uploaded - if it was made by you, you can put something like {{PD-self}} in the description, which will say that you made it and release all rights. If you don't want to release all rights, there are other licences available, check the drop-down box in the upload dialog. Hope my explanation helped. -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 14:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilink colors

I think I've seen it done (not 100% sure) before - is there a way to change the colors of the wikilinks (to something other than blue/purple) using the Wiki syntax? I'm mainly asking for userboxes which have dark backgrounds. I'll try to search for such a userbox with a link, but if someone knows, please tell me :) -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 14:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[[Yellow|<span style="color: #ffff00">Yellow</span>]] = Yellow--Cherry blossom tree 15:59, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there any way to change the underline color as well? ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 16:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Pictures Version 3

Wiki-star: Yes! Finally, i found out how to provide a sufficient license. Thank you wikipedians! Ok, remember This picture i posted in Version 2? I'm having trouble making it smaller. How do i change the size of an image?

Thanks again! Wiki-star 15:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

In the article you can specify the size of the image, like so:

[[Image:TFA.jpg|150px]]
[[Image:TFA.jpg|thumb|150px|Your caption here]]

-- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 15:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Tunnard: removed entry

This is to ask why this entry has been removed. I checked the entry (by anonymous author) two months ago and it seems unlikely there was anything copyright - the statements were mostly straightforward and well-known information. As I co-authored a book on this artist, I corrected a few factual errors to the then version and was content that the revised entry was sound. Brian Whitton

The article was tagged as a copyright violation by Tearlach, but he only mentioned "suspected offline copyvio" and did not cite a source, nor was the procedure in Wikipedia:Copyright_problems followed. I left a message on his Talk page and have restored the article for the time being, until he explains the situation. It may well be a copyright infringement, but the editor who replaces the article text with a copyvio tag has at least a minimum burden of proof. If you are familiar with the material and/or its origin, feel free to post on the article's Talk page. MCB 18:21, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for a page

The other day I, with the help of a friend, discovered you could type in the name of your town/city and my friend and others had articles they had written about themselves. I am now having extreme difficulty in finding that page again. Can you help me?

Articles which do not meet the criteria set by Wikipedia:Notability (people) are speedily deleted. Most likely, your friends are not notable enough for Wikipedia, sorry. Unless you were talking about something else? -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 15:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you ran into a "Wikipedians in Zanzibar"-type category page that took you to a list of user pages? Articles that people here write about themselves typically don't belong in the main part of the encyclopedia, but people do write extensively about themselves in userspace. What town/city is it? · rodii · 17:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Our Friends in the North

While checking for changes to pages I have created or heavily contributed to, as I regularly do, I saw that this afternoon somebody, an anon editor, has listed this page as a possible copyright violation. There's no corresponding entry for it on the copyright violation page, just the marker in place of where the article used to be. I've never had any complaints about the article in this respect before — indeed, it made it to featured status without anybody mentioning any such issues. Who do I need to speak to about this? Angmering 17:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

If you had gone to the page that they referenced as being the source of the copyrighted material, you'd see it's pretty plainly a vandal that put the notice there. I've since reverted it. Dismas|^(talk) 17:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't spot that. Cheers! :-) Angmering 18:07, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image License Denied, Still Usuable?

Wiki-star: Hello again! I just want to know if an uploaded image, that has an unknown license, still able to be inserted within an article?

Thanks again! Wiki-star 17:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

It can be put into the article but if the license situation isn't resolved in the seven days that are required, the image would be deleted and the article would have a dead link on it. Dismas|^(talk) 17:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additional Formatting

Wiki-star: Another Question my fellow wikipedians! Is there any way for me to increase the font size of a word within an article? Is there anyway for me to underline a word? Is there anyway for me to change the color of a word?

Thanks again! I love you guys! Wiki-star 17:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

For color, see the question about 4-5 questions above this one. For underline you can use HTML markup (I don't think there's a wiki-markup for underline). The HTML version would be <u> and </u> like this. Dismas|^(talk) 18:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually that question related to colors using Wiki syntax, although the solution the person offered was good. As for your question, you can use CSS for font sizes, colors, etc. You probably shouldn't do this outside your user page though (or other special cases). Start with:

<span style="

Then insert either:

color: YOUR COLOR HERE (ex.: blue, #fff, or #fafafa)
font-size: YOUR SIZE HERE (ex.: 12pt)
font-family: YOUR FONT HERE (ex.: Times)
text-decoration: YOUR DECORATION HERE (ex.: underline)

Or any other inline CSS property, then:

">YOUR TEXT HERE</span>

-- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 20:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't. If you want to fiddle with the font sizes and colors in your Talk page or in your User page, you are more than welcome to do so, but please don't change the sizes and colors within articles. We have a standard appearance in articles, and we want to keep it standard. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:00, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiki-star, just to make sure, have you read the articles that were linked in the welcome message on your talk page? There's a lot of good information in there, and with a little digging, many of the kinds of questions you're asking are answered there. Some of your questions are making me wonder--as I imagine Zoe is wondering--whether you're going to be creating articles that really fit the wikipedia style. Just in case, and to save you grief down the road, make sure you've read the welcome articles, OK? And it would be a good idea to read a few good articles and pay attention to the style and format too. · rodii · 21:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Followup: looks pretty good--maybe go easy on the external links and the bold. · rodii · 23:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] link to www.clarksvillemo.us

Is it possible to link www.clarksvillemo.us to this site? Thank you for your consideration of this important matter to the City of Clarksville, MO 63336. Jo Anne Smiley, Mayor

We're not a collection of links, I'm afraid. The article on Clarksville, Missouri might have a place for such a link; if it does, then try adding it. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:41, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely! If you enter Clarksville, MO into the search box on the left side of your screen, you will be taken immediately to our article on the town.

Anybody is free to contribute to Wikipedia, so you can scroll down the Clarksville, Missouri article page to the 'External links' section, and click on the [Edit] link on the right side of the page next to the section title.

To add a bullet point, use an asterisk before your new entry to the list. Links to external sites (any site outside of Wikipedia itself) are enclosed in single square brackets: [ ]. Inside the brackets type the link web address, a space, and any descriptive text you want to appear with the link. So, the code (you can copy and paste it, if you'd like)

*[http://www.clarksvillemo.us Official city website]

will look like this in the article:

Official city website

There are more detailed instructions for links and a discussion of what external links may be appropriate to articles at Wikipedia:External links. Welcome to Wikipedia, and happy editing! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LaTeX

Is there a list of articles that need conversion to LaTeX? I've looked at a couple random math articles and there's quite a few that need LaTeX formatting. Admin kingboyk suggested that I create a template, but I thought I'd check here first. Thanks! Isopropyl 20:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

"Admin"! lol! It's only been a few hours :) I said (so you know what advice has already been given, and correct it if need be):

If it's ever been tackled it would (should) be a cleanup-type template which includes articles in a relevant category, like Category:Articles with ASCII art. I've not found one specific to LaTeXing. I suggest you ask around (e.g. Wikipedia:Help desk) and if the answer is negative, create a template and category (using something like Template:Reqphoto and Category:Wikipedia requested photographs for your inspiration), and start tagging (on the Talk pages rather than the articles, I would suggest). If you need any help with that process come back to me.

--kingboyk 20:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics and integrate your suggestion with that project. Kusma (討論) 21:53, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

What is the policy regarding company logos in templates? Specifically, Template:LaTeX. Isopropyl 23:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist Tray Icon

I was wondering if any Windows users have come across a system tray icon which keeps an eye on a Mediwiki/the Wikipedia watch list? Would be quite trivial to write, I know, but I believe in recycling :) --kingboyk 20:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Measurements policy?

I searched the Wikipedia pages for this but couldn't find an answer - is there a policy of what measurements to use? I saw articles that use the metric system, the British-American system (ft, in, lbs, etc.), or both. Is there a policy or does it just have to be consistent within an article, in the same way as British/American spellings of -or/-our words are? -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 21:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

See here Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Measurements. It doesn't seem to be spelled out but I guess an article should have both systems. And depending on what comes first, look at the first major contributor of the article. x miles (x km) or x km (x miles) Garion96 ^(talk) 22:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the first should be determined the same way the variant of English to use is. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:16, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HISTORICAL AUDIO RECORDINGS

I do not have the skill necessasry to add an audio recording to one of your articles, such as F-105, Wild Weasel, Rolling Thunder etc.

I would like to talk to a voluntter who DOES have such skill, and the time to talk about it, and more importantly for a process this complex, to do it for me himself.

I prefer an E-MAIL contact since I have little skill with your systems......

I am metcalf12 AT earthlink DOT net

These 1966 recordings may be quite rare; are not functionally used at the Air Force Museum. or elsewhere to my knowledge.

Email obfuscated. H e rmione1980 23:29, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

How about the people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SEARCH OPTION IN BROWSER

Hi, do you have an application somewhere that puts a wikipedia search bar on my browser's panel? (not a link to the site, but a search bar, like Google has).

Best, Dov (email removed to protect from spam spiders) Garion96 ^(talk) 22:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is an in-browser search available yet, but if you have Mac OSX 10.4 (Tiger) you can download a Wikipedia search widget for your dashboard: [7]. There's even an multi-language one: [8].—WAvegetarian•_{_{CONTRIBUTIONS}}^{^TALK}• ^{^EMAIL}• 03:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Tools#Browser integration. There is one for Firefox. What browser do you use? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

You can also kluge it with IE by using the Google search bar and adding "site:en.wikipedia.org" (without the quote marks) to your searches. User:Zoe|^(talk) 00:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another Question

Wiki-star: I would like to first clarify that i did read each link provided in My Talk Page. I even extended the search everywhere on the Site to find out what other information i wasn't given. I then gave up and decided to ask here. This is what this page is for right? It's a desk to further explain what was allready explained. Every question that i have asked has been explained. Wikipedia tries it's very best to explain as thoroughly as possible to it's readers. However not everyone will get it, and thats why a Help Desk is there for anyone who needs further assistance. It is a page to provide more information and details for the Flustered reader. If i am being a nuisance for trying to gain more knowledge, then excuse me!

No no no! I just wanted to make sure yuou knew that stuff was there--there's a lot of "precompiled" help available, is all. But it looks you cranked out some really nice articles. I definitely don;t think you're being a nuisance. Sorry if I gave that impression. · rodii · 03:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

However, it is imperative that i continue to ask for whatever information i don't know, and i'm curious to find out. With that being said, i would like to know how to sub-section a Bulleted or Numbered section. This Page explains how i can sub-section within an article. I have gained that information, however it doesn't have something that i wish to know. How can i sub-section a bulleted or numbered section within an article?

===Wiki-Star=== << Sub-sectioned

====Wiki-star==== << Sub-subsectioned

====Wiki-star==== <<< Why isn't this one sub-sectioned? It's font should be smaller and bolded because i inserted 4 equal signs like the one above which indicates that it should be sub-subsectioned. It is also bulleted, which i think is the problem. Can i sub-section a bulleted or numbered section?

Thanks again! Wiki-star 23:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, I don't think you can subsection bulleted or numbed entries. I don't particularly see why you would want to. You can get the same effect by Simply bolding entires on bullets:

Bullet & Bold

I wouldn't advise using those as section headers. Anyways, welcome to Wikipedia and have fun editing :) — Ilyan e p (Talk) 23:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

"====" headers must be at the beginning of the line to function (notice how the ones at the beginning of this line are not rendered.)--Max Talk (add) • Contribs • 02:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no way to bullet a subsection: they are two different things. A bullet is a way of organizing a list, so that you can have

One point,
Two points, and so on. Likewise, an ordered list is similer, only with numbers:

Like this
And this.

A subsection, however, is a way of dividing up an article so it flows logically, and it also shows up in the table of contents at the top of the page. Both lists and headings have their roots in HTML, and have been separate entities from the begining of the internet.
Hope that helps! — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 04:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiki-star, the best way to sign your posts is by putting four tildes at the end -- ~~~~. User:Zoe|^(talk) 00:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] March 5

[edit] please advise on creating red link articles...

hello, i would like to register and begin by creating an article on the first viking age, i saw a red link to this on another page but im not sure how to go about making it and doing it so that it will link up with it's red links else where, thanks to anyone out there :)

When you click on the red link the Wikipedia software will give you a box to start typing the article into. Just put your article in and press "Save page". It's really that easy. Although to create the article you must be registered first. Then once the page is saved, all other red links that point to that page with automatically turn blue. You don't have to hunt them all down or anything. Please see the Manual of style, as well as the rest of the help pages, for help in formatting the page so it looks neat and orderly. Dismas|^(talk) 01:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Tthe starting a new page article describes how to do so in detail. — ApolloCreed ^{(comment) (talk)} 01:50, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Note that currently our software doesn't allow new or anonymous editors to create new pages; it was a necessary change we had to make to cut down on vandalism.

I recommend registering for an account now—you can then start immediately editing and improving our existing articles to help you get a feel for Wikipedia layout and style conventions. In about four days' time, your account will have aged sufficiently for you to be able to create new articles, following the directions linked above. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 06:35, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Since when do accounts have to age to create new articles? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
- Since December: [9] Zzyzx11 (Talk) 13:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bots and how to upload their changes

Hi, I want to search automatically for links in some articles and then write them in one of my own pages. Can anyone tell me what I can do to submit the edits to a page with a bot? (Preferably with a Microsoft programmimg language.) Thanks --Jotomicron | talk 01:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Have you investigated Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser? Make sure you get approval at WP:B before running a bot (you could also ask for help there)--Commander Keane 12:50, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look into that link! --Jotomicron | talk 14:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] how to make a wikepidia site/page/article

how do you make a site

If you mean how do you make a new article, a simple way is to type the article title you want to make into the search box. Click on Go. Then click on edit or the provided link to create the article. —WAvegetarian•_{_{CONTRIBUTIONS}}^{^TALK}• ^{^EMAIL}• 03:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, you should got to Help:Starting a new page, which I wasn't aware of until just now.—WAvegetarian•_{_{CONTRIBUTIONS}}^{^TALK}• ^{^EMAIL}• 03:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English words ending with the letters -gry

I received an e-mail this morning containing a riddle asking which other English word ('other' as in 'apart from hungry and angry') ends with -gry. This mystery word is apparently quite well-known and used daily by most and yet and I am still to figure it out. Any help would ease my frustration and thus would be muchly appreciated. Thank you.

You should read the top of this page. It says clearly that the Help Desk is for questions related to Wikipedia. For this sort of questions, please use the appropriate Reference Desk page. If you repeat this, you'll make a lot of people angry (heh)☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 06:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Gry--Commander Keane 12:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Although as stated above this isn't the proper venue for your question, everything you could want to know about this riddle is here: http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_gry_angry_hungry.html --Fuhghettaboutit 05:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's policy on cites to commercial products?

I'm writing a new section on a new computer technology and was considering adding references andn links to the few vendor sites that actually incorporate that technology into their products, to substantiate that this actually seems to work in practice.

Is that acceptable, or is that seen as advertising. Sorry, I couldn't find this in the FAQ.

Relevant policies include How not to be a spammer and Links to normally avoid. Generally, it's OK to link to a company's website in the "External links" section if that company is mentioned in the text. Relevant links to manufacturers are generally accepted, while links to shops are not. You won't get censured unless you are a persistent spammer, which obviously you are not. Another policy that's worth bearing in mind is that you shouldn't link to your own or your employer's company. If your products are good enough, just wait and someone else will make a link to them. --Heron 12:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VERY SPECIAL image-formatting - blocking linking to image-page

you know, one can block viewing the image but linking to it like [[:Image:example.jpg]] but I need a way to do it the other way round!! how to just display the picture without linking to it? is there any code for this??? I know, it would not make sense to use this in wikipedia, but I installed wikimedia for my own wiki and I would need this very much there!!!

thank you very much!!!!!

Please see the MediaWiki support page for help with running your own wiki. There are a number of resources listed there for questions like this. Cheers, MCB 19:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ipecacuanha Root

I want to buy Ipecacuanha Root. Where in India i can buy them will any body help me.

Try the reference desk.--Cherry blossom tree 15:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] copyright of old material

Works created before 1978 could be copyrighted for 27 years, and the copyright could be extended for another 27 years (54 years total). The law for works created from 1978 is different, but they don't apply to the older works. If something is currently more than 54 years old, can we assume that it is no longer copyrighted and upload it? Bubba73 (talk), 15:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

No. In most countries copyright expires after the death of the author plus a number of years (usually at least 50.) In the USA, which I presume you are referring to, the situation is 28 or 95 years for works copyrighted 1923-1963; 95 years for works copyrighted 1964-1977; thereafter life plus 70 years. (Copyrights prior to 1923 have expired.)--Cherry blossom tree 17:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. How do you go about getting permission to use them on Wikipedia? In particular, I'm looking at two (or maybe three) things that are before 1950, but not before 1923, and are on websites that certainly aren't the origianal author. Bubba73 (talk), 00:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Use something similar to Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission and ask them where they got the image (perhaps educate them about copyright along the way). - Mgm|^(talk) 08:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to add public information that's sourced from a copyrighted website?

Not sure if this is covered anywhere in Wikipedia, but I'm a bit unsure what the policy is. As an example, I have been writing a stub article on Kigali International Airport in Rwanda. Being a resident of Kigali, I know quite a few facts about this airport, and can gain more by asking people around, but there's lots of other information on this external webpage: [10], and this one: [11], which it would be nice to carry over into the Wiki article. Obviously the text can be reworded and the ext. link cited (not sure exactly how?) but is this acceptable? Cheers. — SteveRwanda 17:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Rewording the link is fine. After stating a fact that comes from the website you should include <ref>http://www.winne.com/rwanda/to00.html</ref> and then at the end of the article include

==References==

which will put footnotes in for you. See John Githongo for an article where this system is used. If that sounds too complex then just include a link to the website after the fact.--Cherry blossom tree 17:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, please take a look at WikiProject Airports and its associated Talk page for more information and help with writing and editing articles about airports. Cheers, MCB 19:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, information from a copyrighted site should be reworded. It's the way they wrote it down (not the facts) that are copyrighted. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Unless this lawsuit succeeds [12]: the suit seems to hinge on one book repeating what another book presented as fact. Notinasnaid 20:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expert on Image issues: please vet my upload methodology

I am of the opinion that every movie article should have a corresponding image—a dvd or vhs cover or ideally, its movie poster. I have uploaded quite a few and plan on uploading many, many more. However, before I travel too far down this road, I was hoping to get some feedback from an expert on image uploads/license issues to evaluate my standard upload methodology for problems or improvements, if any. I had a debacle with regard to dog images recently--I uploaded many and all turned out to have license problems. While movie image uploads seems more clear-cut, thought I'd request some feedback. So, here are links to three recent uploads, all to Peter Sellers' movies, respectively, for a dvd cover, a vhs cover and a movie poster: The Naked Truth.jpg; I'm All Right Jack.jpg and The Wrong Box.jpg. Thanks in advance. --Fuhghettaboutit 20:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images are always a thorny issue, one that many other wikipedias avoid by simply banning them altogether. When we (the english wikipedia) accept them, it should always be with gritted teeth. Statements like "Movie posters are deemed fair use" are much too sweeping. In general, small copies of the poster or boxcover are generally felt to be fair use on the article for that movie. Use the smallest image you can (I'd downscale the I'm allright jack image a lot) and present them using framed rather than thumb in the syntax (so we're not storing more image than we absolutely need for the article). Make sure each image has a fair-use rationale, relating it to a specific article (following the rubric of wikipedia:Image description page#Fair use rationale). Fair-use of covers in these cases is fairly accepted for the movie in question - some folks content it's okay for the article on the stars depicted (and some folks contend it isn't). If, however, you used a Charlize Theron boxcover to illustrate blonde or beauty that definately wouldn't be fair use. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

But (to specifically answer regarding those images) you've generally done it right - used the correct tag, provided the source, and only used it on the article for the movie. For these, if the larger two were downscaled and if all had a fair-use rationale they'd be fine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

And (when comparing your fair-use contributions to those already existing on Wikipedia) you should bear in mind that:

the great majority of images on wikipedia which are claimed to be fair use aren't
of those images which really are likely to be fair use, most aren't yet because they've been mishandled (too big, on inappropriate pages, no fair-use rationale)
a lot of people recognise the above, and there's very likely to be a fair-use purge coming

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Greatly appreciated! I will attempt to put your suggestions into practice. Thanks again --Fuhghettaboutit 01:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] inquire how many available

I am interested in knowing how many (total) groups, associations, organizations, non profits, etc.are available through your company. Also if the list can be brokedown by state, region and or catergory. After I know this I can inquire what the cost will be. Lookimg forward to hearing from you. Thank You, Rick Dobson rick.dobson@randdassociates.com or 937-477-1531

Out of interest, what exactly do you think Wikipedia is? --Cherry blossom tree 00:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should look at the Wikipedia article to learn more about Wikipedia, or Wikimedia Foundation, which is the parent orgnaisation. - Akamad 03:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Let me see if I can help. You've left a message at the Wikipedia Help Desk; this is for questions about how to use Wikipedia. Your question doesn't seem to fall into this category, but perhaps it does.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, a collection of (perhaps) factual articles about a wide range of subjects. If you browse through it, you will find articles about companies, non-profit organizations, and nearly every notable sort of group -- and many that seem obscure. All this information is free to you, in both senses.

Some of these articles are grouped in various ways, but not consistently. There are several ways you may be able to search for the information you need:

Many articles belong to one or more Categories. These are formal listings of article pages, such as Category:Companies. Quite often, categories belong to other categories; and many have subcategories of their own. However, this is not a strictly hierarchial tree. Also, categorization is all manual and many articles are miscategorized -- commonly, they are not categorized as specifically as they might be. You'll do well to begin with fairly general categories and work your way down.

There are many pages of Lists; each one is a fairly simple list of articles on related topics, such as List of doughnut shops. Again, these are constructed manually and may have ommissions.

On every page is a search box. If you register on the wiki you can go to your Preferences and adjust the way this feature works. It's fairly crude but it does search all pages in Wikipedia automatically without relying on manual indexing.

Finally, and perhaps best, there is still Google. If you prefix any search with "site:en.wikipedia.org" then you will constrain that search to English Wikipedia pages only. Please note that you may discover pages relevant to your query that are not encyclopedia articles. For instance, this page is titled Wikipedia:Help desk; it is not an article at all. Any page whose title begins with a word followed by a colon, such as "Wikipedia:", "Talk:", or "User:" is not an encyclopedia article. You should treat any information you find on such pages with extra caution.

None of these methods will give you an accurate count of articles relating to a given topic; I'm sorry. At the time of this writing, we have over a million articles on all topics; unfortunately, article growth has far outpaced our ability to categorize, index, list, or count.

You notice that replies to your question appear here, below your question and on the same page. This is generally true. There is no need for you to supply your email or phone, since generally we do not reply in this way. If you register, you will be given a talk page and you may find comments directed to you there.

I hope Wikipedia proves a useful resource to you. If you like, you can tell us more specifically how we may be of service. John Reid 05:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] March 6

[edit] How do you put a picture on a new article.

I just created a new article (Gulu Walk, check it out) and and I want to know how to put pictures on it. Please help me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Isaac Asimov (talk • contribs) .

- Go to special:upload LuciferMorgan 00:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The picture tutorial describes in detail how to put a picture on an article. — ApolloCreed ^{(comment) (talk)} 04:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How do you create a table (ish) for band articles?

Such articles as Metallica, Phil Collins and The Beatles have these table like structures on the end of their pages, detailing band members, albums, singles and so on. How are these created? LuciferMorgan 00:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Simply go to one of the articles you've cited as containing the template, click on "edit this page" (or maybe even easier, scroll down to where the template is on the page and click on the [edit] button closest above the table you want to duplicate) find the template code text (it will start with---> "{|" , and end with "|}"; simply copy the template from beginning to end, paste into your article, and replace all the filled-in particulars, band name, member names, etc., with the requisite information for your article. You might also find Meta:Help:Table useful. --Fuhghettaboutit 01:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Got your message on my talk page. Okay, now I know exactly what you are referring to (I think). The reason you don't see any code is because it is a link to a template message that has been created on its own page, and which automatically links to the code in multiple articles. So, for instance all you would have to do is type {{beatles}} in any article and you get the beatles message template. The Beatles' is located at Template:TheBeatles. Go there, click edit, copy the code, and modify for your article. --Fuhghettaboutit 01:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Getting stuck on Wikipedia

I'm looking for images to use for my students at school, and when I go to the Wikipedia site I can't get off it and back to my search. I'm trying to avoid Wikipedia because of this but what can I do if I go to the site accidentally? It is extremely frustrating and I'm sure there's something Wikipedia could do to prevent this. Maybe there's something I can do? Please advise me about this. Thank you. cbalchin@rcn.com

I have to say that this is very interesting. I do google searches where wikipedia comes up all the time. I never have a problem going back. Which web browser are you using? That may have something to do with it. Explorer has no problem. (As far as i can tell) Others might. Also, it may be a virus or cookie on your computer causing it. Tobyk777 04:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see what the problem is. When doing a Google Image search (for instance, [13]), Google opens the page in a frame. Wikipedia, like many sites, includes code to break out of frames. To go back, you must go back two pages. If you just click the back button, it takes you back to the Google framed page, and Wikipedia will again break out of the frame. One option is to click the back button twice, although if the break occurs too fast there may not enough time to get back to the search results page. The other option is to jump directly back. All major browsers let you choose which page to go back to. On Firefox and Internet Explorer, there is a small down arrowhead next to the back button. Clicking it will bring up a list of the recent pages you've visited; the second one is the search results page to which you wish to return. This technique will also work anytime you are automatically directed to a new page. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Please allow me to make a more general suggestion; it will help you in a much more general way to improve your browsing time:

→ Avoid single clicking links that lead from one site to another; instead, control-click or command-click. The specific method may vary for you depending on your platform and browser, but there is almost always a way to open a link in a new window, or even better, a new tab. Play around with your browser a little until you discover it.

Opening links in new windows or tabs pays off very well and in many ways. The original page is still accessible to you, so you never have to use your browser's back button (or worse, some website's back button). You might choose to open two or more links from a page. When you decide to return to the original page, it's still in it's original window (or tab), so you don't need to wait while it reloads. (Going back may only reload from cache, but maybe not -- and either way, this is still faster.) Sometimes you may find it helpful to be able to look at both pages at one time -- the link out and the link in. Some sites make it difficult to go back; but if you still have the original page open, you're always safe.

One caution: You should probably not try this with e-commerce or other transaction-type sites; but then, you may have trouble with these sites, too, if you use your browser's back button. Often, you must simply follow along with what the site's designer intends: no choice, poor design.

If you're not especially technical, this may seem unnatural; you're used to clicking from one page to the next, all in one window. But please trust me: Once you try multiple windows and tabs, you'll never want to do without them. John Reid 05:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keira Knightley article

I wanted to look at the article on Keira Knightley and Wikipedia's behaving weirdly. Entering Keira Knightley in the search box and clicking "Go" brings up

"Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.

Start the Keira Knightley article or add a request for it.
Search for Keira Knightley in other articles..."

I just copied and pasted the above, and as you can see I've spelt the name correctly. Also, if I click the "Start the Keira Knightley article" link, I get a page with the full article's source. So the article is actually there - it just won't display. What's gone wrong? --A bit iffy 03:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Further to this: try the Academy Award for Best Actress article, scroll to 2005 and try clicking on Keira Knightley. --A bit iffy 03:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I actually noticed this exact same thing a little while ago with the science Ref. Desk. After a few minutes, it cleared itself. Dismas|^(talk) 03:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Dismas. I seem to have fixed it by making an edit and reverting. Quite odd. --A bit iffy 04:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This happened to me with a number of articles today, and I was able to fix it by clicking on the "purge" link. I believe it was some sort of database problem. MCB 07:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How do I edit a portal?

Hi, I have been here for a long time now, sevral years in fact. After all this time, I still can't figure out how to edit a portal. When I push the edit button, a whole bunch of giberish comes up. Is this HTML, or some type of code? I was trying to edit Portal:Stargate, to try and make it featured Portal quality. But every edit I made messed up the page. What's the secret? how do you edit Portals? Tobyk777 04:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It's HTML. To edit the individual sections, click "edit this page" then go down to the bottom where it shows the individual templates and subpages that actually have the content on them. Click on the template or subpage you would like to edit and go from there. Does this help? Dismas|^(talk) 04:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Not really. I don't know HTML. Ive tried editing the subtempaltes. They look like giberish too. Do i need to know HTML to edit portals, or is there another way? Tobyk777 05:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism question

How would Wikipedia stop some troll who widens the page? i.e. presses control v over and over and over again, so the page is super long. Not only does it make the page inaccessible, but it also makes it impossible to revert? It baffles me that Wikipedia is 5 years old, and there hasn't been a single case about that happening.

I don't see how this would make it impossible to revert. You could easily just go to the history, call up the last good version, edit the page, save, done. Or am I missing the crux of your question? Dismas|^(talk) 05:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we've had a quite a lot of people use control-v to copy something into a page multiple times. But I'm glad to report that no matter how many obscenities or monkey pictures someone inserts, there's always someone able to revert. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why does "See also" only have links that didn't appear before?

I've seen before, but can't find now, a guideline that the "See also" section should not contain links that already appeared in the text. I'm trying to find the reasoning behind that guideline, because of some proposals around the Electronics article. Basically the proposal is for a list of links to appear on Electronics and related articles to aid in navigation. These proposal is being discussed at Talk:Electronics, Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Electronics, and is a continuation of a proposal at Wikipedia:Root page. Since the proposal is basically just a "See also" section without the "not previously linked" restriction, I expect the reasons for the restriction to be relevant to the new proposal also. Thanks in advance. -- The Photon 05:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It's to stop people from putting all the links relevant to the article in the see also section and have it grow out of proportion. Suppose we did that on WWII, we'd have a mile long list of see also links. Instead, "see also" is used to include links the text couldn't discuss because they'd make it unwieldy or because it was outside the scope of the article. Besides, if people keep their settings, links in the text light up blue making them easy to find anyway. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] writing an article

I recently decided to try to write an article on a topic that noone had written about, wrote the article, posted it.. and a few hours later found that it had been deleted.

Would there be a reason that it would be deleted like this ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dreamzweaver (talk • contribs) .

What was the name of the article? It may have qualified under our criteria for speedy deletion. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[via edit conflict]:There could be plenty of reasons, but if you'll be more specific about which article was it, it could be helpful in revealing additional details. If it was deleted in a few hours, it means it got speedy deleted, so there was probably something very wrong with it - Either it was full of nonsense, or it was a copyright violation, or something like that. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 06:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How can I ungoogle my userpage?

Meta tags in HTML usually allow you to tell google not to index a certain page. How can I do this using Wiki? I want to take my userpage off google (for various reasons, including it catching more hits on searchwords for the websites listed on it). If this facility isn't available, it should be: userpages arent part of the encyclopedia. -- Alfakim -- talk 08:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with that last line. If it wasn't for Google, I wouldn't be able to find some people's excellent wiki tools. Googling userpages can be very useful. Isn't it a good thing, it catches hits for your personal pages? - Mgm|^(talk) 09:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Nevertheless if you don't want to get Google hits you shouldn't have to get them. I guesws one could just have their userpage erased.. Williamb 10:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
He appears to not want hits for some links, but does for other content. If Google hits anything you don't want to show, just remove it. Like the encyclopedia pages, the userpages are also GFDL, thus regularly Google-able. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Korean War

The article has been vandalised —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.240.128.75 (talk • contribs) ..

The vandalism has been fixed and User:204.228.78.131 has been warned. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] recover deleted article...

How do I get a copy of the text and discussion from a deleted article?

The article was listed for deletion on Feb. 26th. It is called "COEBA" It was apparently deleted today.

I would like to get a copy of the article contents as it was when it was deleted and the article discussion tab/page contents.

Thanks!

Ben 17:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Only sysops can see deleted content; I'll put it in your userspace -- see your talk page, thanks. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 18:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. --Ben 18:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
If you are still there... Can you restore the text from the discussion page and exclude the "whois" info. I am looking to copy out some text I wrote back in November. It was about 5 to 10 paragraphs I think.

Got it again. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 18:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing background color of my User page

Can somebody help me? I'm experimenting with my User page and wanted to change the background color, but the best I can do is to change the color of one line. What do I need to do to change the entire background? HTML is not my forte. Any help would be appreciated. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what is the correct way of doing it, but enclosing your page with <div style="background:blue"> </div> seems to work. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That still only gave me one line. :( User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah. If I type inside the div boundaries, the line increases, but the images on my page stay outside the color even though they're contained with the div boundaries. Sigh. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. It seems to work for me. It could have something to do with the images' settings. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Check this out. I think the point is that the background color extends only as far as the text, so you'll have to put more text for the entire page to be covered. I don't know any way around it, but then again I don't know much. Was this helpful? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Meni. Jareth gave me an answer involving tables which seems to work, though now I have to fiddle with other things. :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Annotation

I need to write an annotation about Wikipedia for a research paper. How do I go about doing that?

Please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Dismas|^(talk) 20:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Pictures: Links,Colors,and More Images

Wiki-star: And a hello to you too my fellow wikipedians! This maybe the final question i have towards Article Pictures. It's not really one of the versions i previously created, because it's more related to links, colors etc.

I notice that in articles such as This One, Or this one there are links within the Image. Theres also colors and borders to section and better describe the image like in the Nereis Article. My question is, how can i make my Article Images have links, sub images within a section image (like seen within the U.S Article), and/or borders and colors (like seen within the Nereis Article)?

Thanks again! Wiki-star 21:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Those are templates. If you click on the edit page link at the top of those articles, then scroll all the way down you will see links to the templates that they call for. In the U.S. article that template is here: Template:Infobox Country. Dismas|^(talk) 21:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiki-star: Yeah but can you like provide in your own words step by step how i can insert these additions to my Article?

I appreciate your help! Wiki-star 21:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I normally just find the one I want, copy it, paste it where I want it, then change the relevant values to reflect what the article deals with. I've never written a template, sorry. Perhaps someone else can walk you through actually creating one. Dismas|^(talk) 22:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You might find Meta:Help:Tables useful—among other things, there is a section there for adding colors to tables. (section 2.3) --Fuhghettaboutit 22:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ?????????/

what is the address of the excel company because i have to write them a letter

[edit] March 7

[edit] Odd Wikipedia bug?

A few minutes ago, I ambled over to Teach the Controversy, and saw that the page didn't exist. Despite the fact that the link that led me there was blue, and it had a perfectly good discussion page, and I could see no reason for its deletion.

I checked the page history; the last edit was on February 28, and was a minor change to an obviously existing article.

Thinking that it had been speedied for some reason, I checked the deletion log. Nothing.

At a loss, I clicked on the last edit in the edit history (which should have been the article's current state), then (without modifying it), wrote an edit summary expressing my puzzlement, and hit the "Save page" button.

Well, the article came back, in all its glory. But there was no evidence of my edit in the edit history, at all. Basically, there is now no evidence that the article was ever missing; you'll have to take my word for it.

Any idea what the hell happened there? --Ashenai 00:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Database server lag? Sounds very plausable considering what's been going on lately. — Ilyan e p (Talk) 00:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

See the Keira Knightly question about 10 questions up from this one. Dismas|^(talk) 01:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox bordering

羹湯

“ quote goes here ”

The whatever Summer Olympics in Athens

Swimming at the whatever Summer Olympics

Men

Women

The wherever Summer Olympics in Athens

Swimming at the wherever Summer Olympics

Men

Women

Was wondering if anyone can help me with this. I've got code that looks like this:

{{:User:Tomtheman5/Sandbox}}
{{:User:Tomtheman5/Sandbox2 | Men's something}}
{{:User:Tomtheman5/Sandbox3 | whatever | whatever}}
{{:User:Tomtheman5/Sandbox3 | wherever | whenever}}
{{MedalBottom}}

It gives the table on the right. The actual templates are {{MedalTop}}, {{MedalSport}}, and {{MedalGold}}, and they're meant to be used for olympic medalists. Now, I'm trying to fix this so that it has (a) a border around the entire thing, (b) a white border separating the colors of the medals, and (c) no interruptions, such as the white dots in the outside border that result from the whitening of the border around the gold. Does anyone know how to do this? tiZom_(2¢) 00:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book cover sources

Is there a preferred source for book covers? Specifically, I'd like to make the Memoirs of a Geisha cover the book and film separately, somewhat like the James Bond series. I remember reading something about getting from Amazon being sketchy. Is this the most recent word? --Christopherlin 00:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Book covers are copyrighted. You can only claim fair use on them if they are used to illustrate the article on the book and if they're resolution is scaled down. - 131.211.210.11 08:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Right. I know that off of the book cover image template, but I was wanting to know if there was a specific web source that was preferred over using a general . --Christopherlin 14:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On the main page!!! Urgent!!!

I clicked on the link for the BADR on the US English main site, and it links to a page that has many pictures of Full frontal male and statements about sexually violating young children.

I contacted you as soon as I saw it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.178.171.115 (talk • contribs).

Which link are you referring to? The links Battle of Badr and Badr both appear to direct to the appropriate articles... -- Nataly a 03:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the history for the Battle of Badr page, it looks like someone was having fun vandalizing it to appear as described, earlier today. That must what this person is be writing about. It appears fine now. Crypticfirefly 03:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] searching

I just created a new page, and I was wondering how long it will take till it is a result of a search. It has not been coming up.

thanks for the help Aaron (adomenic)

It depends on how often the database is updated. Usually it's just a couple days. If you wikify your article and add categories it will help others navigate to it from other articles. Dismas|^(talk) 05:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Memory archive

I read a great article about what I thought was "Wiki Memory", unfortunately it was put out for recycling before I had cut it out.

The article was inviting readers to write personal accounts about any historical incident at all to build up an archive of memories. So it could be a concert one has attended, a historical event you were part of (maybe unwittingly) and so on. I thought it seemed great and wanted to contribute.

Have I misremmbered? Was it not linked to wikipedia?

I believe what you are looking for is called MemoryWiki. It uses the same software as Wikipedia, and thus looks somewhat similar, but is not connected with the Wikimedia Project which sponsors Wikipedia. MCB 05:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Defence Modernisation in South East Asia

Is it true South East Asia Defence Modernisation has failed in many ways. Can anybody give some idea about this matters.

Thank you

joey

Hi Joey — This type of question belongs on the reference desk. The help desk (this page) is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please follow the link to the reference desk, select the relevant topic, and post your question there. Thanks. MCB 07:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Different <font> parameters

I know this might sound like a stupid question, but I've searched, looked under the help section, tried experiementing with a wiki page, but to no avail, no solution was found on my part. So let me ask my simple question to receive a simple (and probably obvious) answer: How do I set font to 13px?

Ex: <font size=13px>

Is all I want to do. Wiki doesn't seem to recognize the px, and instead enlarges the text to 13--not 13px. The reason is I want to mimic the style of <h4>. I'm creating a manual with a list about 30 functions (using <h3>). Each function has 3 or 4 subsections (<h4>), but it's not nessessary for those subsections to appear in the Contents table. It purposelessly makes it look and unattractive, so I'd rather use the h4 tag without wiki identifying it as a subsection. I've tried (almong alot of things) <nowiki><h4></nowiki> but that doesn't work. Does anybody have suggestions?

[edit] Article deleted

I tried creating an article but it was deleted and I don't know why.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bole2 (talk • contribs) ..

It would help if you could tell us the exact title of that article. - 131.211.210.11 08:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Bang Cartoon.com

That article was deleted because the subject was not deemed sufficiently notable for inclusion. If you wish to contest this then you should see deletion review, but I wouldn't hold out too many hopes.--Cherry blossom tree 21:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes but why was it deemed not notable for inclusion? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bole2 (talk • contribs) ..

Please see WP:WEB for Wikipedias website inclusion criteria. Henrik 10:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"content is notable if it meets the following criteria" Which it does.

[edit] Very strange image behaviour

I was recently browsing over Battle of Pea Ridge, when I noticed that the second image (the map of the battlefield was just a series of vertical lines. Opening the picture, I found that nothing had changed, but the high-res version looks just fine. Purging the image from the cache (both using my browser and the purge URL trick) didn't help. The history doesn't show any changes to the image in question since last year. Does anyone know what is going on? — QuantumEleven | (talk) 09:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

One has to wonder if it was ever a good image. Have you contacted the editor who uploaded it? User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Ladybird Symbol

Dear Sirs

On your site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird) you record the fact that a number of organisations use the ladybird as their symbol and list them I wonder whether you might also add us, Pestalozzi International Village Trust, to that list.

We are a nationally recognised UK based charity, founded in 1957; more information is available on our website (please see the address details below).

I would welcome your positive response.

Yours faithfully

Rod Chalmers Fundraising Co-ordinator Pestalozzi International Village Trust Sedlescombe East Sussex, TN33 0RR

tel : 44 (0) 1424 870 444 email : email address removed website : www.pestalozzi.org.uk registered charity number : 1098422

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.92.80.160 (talk • contribs).

Well, since everyone can edit Wikipedia, you can add your organization to that list yourself; Just go to Ladybird, click the tab "edit this page", and make whatever changes you desire. It would probably be a good idea to leave a note on that article's talk page with more information, including an explanation why you think your organization is notable enough to be included. Be prepared for the fact that if people don't find your organization important enough, they will remove it from the list. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Diff.jpg deleted

I was browsing the tip of the day archives and came across this a red link to this image which has been deleted for being a "fair use orphan".

It was wasn't an orphan.
Surely Wikipedia screen shots are allowed to explain the workings of the site without being labelled fair use?
Even if it was fair use, I think this was a good way of using it.

I found a copy on wikinfo to reinstate, but when I tried to get it through Google, going to Wikipedia forced me out of frames (which happened to contain the link. How do I avoid that? - Mgm|^(talk) 12:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion answers

Why has no one responded to most of the comments I have posted on discussion pages? Am I doing something wrong? Walton monarchist89 13:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Did anyone hear something? --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 14:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Not at all! It's just that, unless the topic is particularly controversial or a large number of users are involved in editing an article about it, comments on article talk pages tend not to get answers very quickly, you'll have to be patient. Wikipedia encourages you to be bold, and update the articles yourself - don't worry too much about getting things wrong, someone will come along and correct you in that unlikely event, just dive right in! If you disagree with an editor over a change, then is a good time to take the suject up on the article's talk page, as someone will likely be interested in discussing the matter with you. Good luck! If there is anything I can help with, feel free to leave a comment on my talk page. — QuantumEleven | (talk) 14:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

And to reply to a comment I noticed you left elsewhere, I don't see anything in your block log, so I couldn't understand your question why Doc glasgow blocked you. Maybe you tried to edit from a blocked IP (e.g. a school address that had recently been used to vandalise Wikipedia). If an admin blocks you the best thing to do is to email them directly (by going to their user page and clicking 'Email this user' on the left). They should be willing to explain in more detail or reduce/lift the block if necessary. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you're right. When I got blocked I didn't have my own login yet, so it could have been a confusion over IP addresses etc. I certainly didn't understand at the time why I'd been blocked. Walton monarchist89 13:17, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My School Hates Your Site

I recently did a research topic for my english class. However my teacher specifically told us not to use your site. Now with all my projects I am no longer allowed to use Wikipedia. This pains me greatly and I feel that Wikipedia is the fastest way to get information. I thought I would run this problem by the creators of this great site. I attend Silver Creek High School, in Sellersburg Indiana. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.138.138.193 (talk • contribs) 15:16, March 7, 2006 (UTC).

Well, Wikipedia can be said to be functionally unreliable. Considering using the sources that Wikipedia articles (should) cite instead, such as those found in the 'References' and 'External links' section. You might ask your teacher if he/she's read the Wikipedia:Schools' FAQ, which addresses some of the common questions teachers have about Wikipedia. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 14:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what grade you're in but at my grammar school I wasn't allowed to use an encyclopedia for my primary source of research after about 5th grade. After that we had to use primary sources such as books written about the topic or magazine articles. Although, you can always come here and if the subject you're looking up has external links to various sources, you can use those sources just like we have done. Dismas|^(talk) 14:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

While it may seem annoying now, your teacher is probably doing you a favour. You'll soon discover that there are different kinds of information, and knowing the distinction between them is vital for any research work. You can read all about it at primary source, secondary source and tertiary source. With any information you obtain, you need to think about where it came from, how reliable it's likely to be, and how (un)biased it is. Just using Wikipedia as an authoritative guide will likely create problems for you sooner or later, as despite Wikipedia's lofty goals it still has a few problems, one of them being that it's often hard to tell where a particular piece of information came from. Without such checks, you could be writing your research project based on completely wrong information.

This is not to say that other sources are necessarily more reliable, but they often give you more ways of judging their reliability (by citing their sources, which you can then look up and decide how good they are). For research work, it's recommended that you don't use Wikipedia as an authoritative source, but that you use it to provide some background information on a subject, and then dive into the details through, for instance, the External Links listed at the bottom of pages, or reference books at your library. Good research habits that you pick up now will be very valuable later on, trust me. Good luck with your project! — QuantumEleven | (talk) 14:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Going to one site and paraphrasing what you find there isn't what I would call research, and maybe that's what your teacher is getting at. Wikipedia can be viewed as a first level: all good articles will have references you can follow, back to secondary or primary sources. Notinasnaid 14:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't let my students cite Wikipedia either. In fact, I encourage them to be very sparing with internet research in general, since it's so hard to detect bias. I agree with Notinasnaid, Wikipedia's a good entry point to a subject to get the lay of the land, but following sources and doing independent research is necessary. · rodii · 17:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Attending a school myself, I sometimes have the same problem. Some teachers hate wikipedia, though others love it and reccomend using it. In most cases articles link to sources were the information was found and you could still look up articles, and check out the sources. That way you will in most cases be able to referance to the original source and take your own information from there. Good luck. Clq 09:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How are archives done?

I want to archive the '03-'05 talk pages in the love article, how would I do this? --Sadi Carnot 14:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Very simple - create a Talk subpage (such as Talk:Love/Archive1), and then copy-and-paste all the comments (copy and paste the underlying code, not the text directly from your browser, as to keep all the wiki-formatting, links, headings etc) you wish to archive into this new page and save it. Make sure to include a link to the archive on the main talk page so that people don't think you've just deleted everything. If you've got any problems, feel free to ask here or drop me a message on my talk page. — QuantumEleven | (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it better to move the Talk page to the archive page, so the archive will contain the history of the posts included in it? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

If you move the page, the original talk page gets moved and ceases to exist. You want to maintain that page for current discussions.--Adam

^(talk) 18:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess that's true. But in my opinion it would be better to move the page, and then cut the ongoing discussions from the new archive to the talk page - As described in Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page#Alternative procedure. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, I'll give it a try.--Sadi Carnot 20:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An article "History of Radar" has gone missing

The link, History of Radar, appears in several articles, and is still coloured blue in these articles but, as you can see here, the link no longer works. There is no sign of the article being deleted in the deletion log. Any ideas where it is and whether it can be/should be restored? JMcC 15:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

But History of radar, which is the article you doubtlessly wanted, does exist :) There was some discussion at Talk:Radar about this, and the consensus seems to be that radar should be spelled in lowercase (like scuba, as it's an acronym which has entered into common usage as a word), so History of radar is the correct capitalisation of the article. However, to avoid confusion, I've created a redirect from History of Radar. — QuantumEleven | (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] user profile needs to publish over the net

Hi Wikipedia,

I want to have my user profile searchable over google or other search engines, how could I do that?

Arlyn —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arlyn salido-acierto (talk • contribs) 15:26, 7 March 2006.

Google should automatically pick them up - it has mine, at least. However, as you haven't made any edits yet apart from to your userpage and this help desk I feel I have to warn you that Wikipedia user pages are primarily for assisting with writing the encyclopaedia, and not promoting your CV. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 15:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swamp Yankee

In reading a book about organized crime, Boston villians were discussed, including Joe Kennedy. Some of this group were called Swamp Yankees . What are/were swamp Yankees? thanks

frank p.

J. Francis Palamara Cantor Fitzgerald Europe

44 20 7894 7099 Wk. 44 20 7720 5546 Hm. Email addresses removed FrankpLon / AOL Instant Message

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 148.106.128.38 (talk • contribs).

[edit] External links

I am new to Wikipedia.

I note that there are EXTERNAL LINKS in various articles; for example in the Paris Travel section 'Nightlife' there are external links to the web sites of various bars and other commercial entertainment establishments.

I provide rental apartment accommodation for visitors to Paris and other European cities and I would like to place an external link to my web site in an appropriate place in the articles. I would like to know how to do this.

I would be very happy to provide related articles and co-related links to Wikipedia from my own website. Please advise. Thank you.

Bill Cameron Ward

I'm not sure links to your website are appropriate in Wikipedia articles. If, however, you find an article which you think should have a link to your site, you can ask in that article's talk page if that's appropriate. If you get a positive response, you can put that link. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=delete&page=Talk:Biggest_Selling_Female_Music_Artist

This page has been deleted, I found it useful and do not understand why it was deleted. Can you explain why it is gone or put it back? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kieranj (talk • contribs) 19:57, 7 March 2006.

It was deleted along with the page it redirected to when it was nominated for deletion. The nominator's reason was "Wikipedia is not an open forum, and this page seems irrelevant. Not sure what the article is trying to do - it just echoes info on the individuals' separate articles" and editors agreed with him 8-1. Hope that helps. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 20:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't see why the deletion though, it doesn't make sense becuase it provided information. There are lots of articles which present information in this way, they are a source of information for people. The reason just doesn't seem justified. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kieranj (talk • contribs) 19:57, 7 March 2006.

I'm not sure because I never saw the article, but from reading the nomination I suspect it fell foul of our policy against original research. Haz nominated the article, he might be able to go into more detail if you asked him. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doctorine of severability

dear sir, i am a law student, and want to know all about Doctorine of Severability. plase help me out my email id is (removed to protect from spam). thanx for your kind cooperation with regards ambarish

This type of question belongs on the reference desk. The help desk (this page) is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please follow the link to the reference desk, select the relevant topic, and post your question there. Thanks. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 20:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pontefract Castle

dear sirs,

I found a very interesting painting about 'Pontefract Castle' in Wakefield/Yorkshire/UK, but I couldn't find any information who the painter was and when it was painted. Do you have this information?

I would appreciate to hear about it.

Best regards

Kurt Stellfeld Publisher

ks@gryphon-publishers.com

how do you create an article and why do you erase my changes —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jokauff (talk • contribs).

I've sent Jokauff a welcome and some tips regarding his recent editing. More help in guiding him would be appreciated. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with interface

I am having a problem with the interface. The tabs that say "discussion" "edit page" and "history" that are normally on the top are instead in a column on the side as is the sign in/create account button. The navigation links are also spilling over the side of the pane they are usually in and the links to them extend horizontally to the end of the screen. I have not encountered this problem before, but it has now been like this for two days. I hope you can help me solve this issue, thankyou.

While I have not encountered this problem myself, it may be a browser issue. Have you tried any other browsers? -- Y Ynhockey || Talk Y 21:43, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Also try clearing your cache.--Cherry blossom tree 23:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Types of Image Box's

Wiki-star: A good day to you too fellow Wikipedians! My question today goes towards Article Pictures once more. I am still confused on the type of Borders, and shadings Authors of their articles use. An example would be the Nereis Article. See how colorful, and organized the image is of the worm in that Article? How can i input a similar organization of another image, just take out the links? What are the codes, or HTML i need to use in order to organize an image? You know, make it look fancy and Eye Catching? Please be specific. And if you're going to provide links, also provide a brief explanation of the link.

Thanks again! Wiki-star 22:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

There are various templates that have been created for specific types of articles. A list of templates can be accessed on Wikipedia:Infobox templates. When you click on that link, and scroll down, you'll see various template clickable links, such as Template:Planet and so on. If you click on Template:Planet, you'll see the template as it will appear in your article, but you need to click on "edit this page" at the top to get the code itself. After you have clicked on "edit this page", highlight all the text of the template and either hit the control button + C, to copy, or right click your mouse and choose copy from the menu that appears. Then, to paste in your article (in edit mode), hit control + V, or right click and choose paste. The template that is used in the Nereis article is a taxobox, and you can take it straight from the Nereis article, following the instructions I just gave. In order to change for your article, you can play with the parameters—for instance, if you don't want pink, change | color = pink, to | color = blue.

By the way, the colors that are accessible by name are: black, navy, green, teal, silver, blue, lime, aqua, maroon, purple, olive, grey, red, fuchsia, yellow and white. The name that will appear at the top is whatever you type in | name = ''Nereis'', for example, | name = ''insert name here''.

However, the image of the worm in the Nereis article is not something you can do like this. The image has to be something that has been uploaded to either this site or to the Wikimedia Commons, located at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Note that many images that are uploaded under fair use can only be used in an article on the subject itself, meaning, for instance, that a movie poster may be fair use in an article on that movie, but may not be fair use for an article on a different subject. So if you find an image that you like (under a proper license), you can put it into the template by copying its name, such as, "example.jpg", then you go back to your template and insert the image name in the correct space, so instead of | image = Eunereis_longissima.jpg, you'd have | image = example.jpg and the image would be perfectly centered and spaced in your template. Hope that helps. --Fuhghettaboutit 23:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

That isn't just an image box, that's a template for displaying not just the picture but also various information about the animal. If you're trying to create an article about another animal then you can copy the code and just change the details. If you're trying to create a different article then it would help to know what the article is so we can tell what kind of template it would require. If all you want to do is put an image in then these templates are not used for that.--Cherry blossom tree 23:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It may be worth noting that, while the box is eye catching, that doesn't mean that you should put nice boxes around images unless there is a particular reason to do so. There is a temptation to add a different design, mess with fonts or layout, to a particular page to make it more attractive, but Wikipedia is actually better if pages look much the same. Notinasnaid 09:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Browser Problem..

I use Opera, and since March 1st, it just crashes periodically, out of nowhere, so to speak, especially when checking changes. Can someone fix this, or is this a known bug? What's going on here? Pacific Coast Highway|^{talk^{22:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)}}

^{I take it this only happens when using Wikipedia? If no-one can help here you may have more luck at Wikipedia:Computer help desk.--Cherry blossom tree 00:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)}

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